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ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPT 

. From an old manuscript now in the possession of the British Museum Th P 

tXvaf pSr Tlitl’it; witl!t P °[ 1 ^ ^ tor 

1 g ns. me city with its cathedral appears in the background. 





























WORLD HISTORY 


BY 

HUTTON WEBSTER, Ph.D. 

PROFESSOR IN THE UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA 


“To men in general I would justify the stress I am lay¬ 
ing on modern history ... by the argument that it is a 
narrative told of ourselves, the record of a life which is 
our own, of efforts not yet abandoned to repose, of prob¬ 
lems that still entangle the feet and vex the hearts of 
men. Every part of it is weighty with inestimable les¬ 
sons that we must learn by . experience and at a great 
price, if we know not how to profit by the example and 
teaching of those who have gone before us, in a society 
largely resembling the one we live in.” 

—Lord Acton, Lecture on the Study of History. 



D. C. HEATH & CO., PUBLISHERS 

NEW YORK 


BOSTON 


CHICAGO 



Copyright, 1923, 

By D. C. Heath & Co. 
2 E3 


PRINTED IN U.S.A. 


SEP 15 73 


©C1A752920 

( - 

M'0 \ 


TO 

GEORGE ELLIOTT HOWARD 





PREFACE 


T HE scope, character, and purpose of this book perhaps require 
clarification here. It covers the entire historic field, together 
with a chapter on prehistoric times; it presents a survey of human 
progress, rather than a chronological outline of events; it is ad¬ 
dressed to all who feel an interest in man’s past and nourish hopes 
for man’s future. They ought to gain from reading such a book, 
however brief, some conception of social evolution and some 
realization of cultural development from the Stone Age to the 
civilization of our time. Nothing but general or universal history 
will give them that conception—that realization. And only a 
history of the world will enable them to appreciate the contribu¬ 
tions made by peoples widely separated in space and time to what 
is steadily becoming the common heritage of mankind. 

About two thirds of the work are devoted to the last three 
centuries. This period furnishes the immediate historical back¬ 
ground of the present age. Furthermore, it is precisely in the 
movements and events of these three centuries that we must seek 
the real origins of the World War. If it be true that “nothing 
in the past is dead to the man who would learn how the present 
comes to be what it is,” then surely the prime business of the 
author of a world history should be to make plain the remoter 
causes, as well as the immediate antecedents, of a struggle epochal 
in the life of humanity. How far I have succeeded in doing so 
must be left to the reader’s judgment. 

For the benefit of those who may wish to read more widely 
in a particular field of history, I have provided a “Bibliographical 
Note,” which contains references chiefly to recent publications, 
together with occasional comment. The list also includes titles 
in archaeology, anthropology, and sociology, three sciences whose 
close relationship to history is obvious. Attention is also directed 
to the “Table of Events and Dates” and to the statements there 
given concerning the significance of each dated event. 

HUTTON WEBSTER 

Lincoln, Nebraska 
December, 1922 

















CONTENTS 


PAGE 

List of Maps .xiii 

List of Plates .xvi 

Bibliographical Note .xviii 


CHAPTER 

I. Prehistoric Times 

The Study of History.1 

Man’s Place in Nature.3 

The Old Stone Age.8 

The New Stone Age.12 

The Age of Metals.15 

Races of Man.17 

Languages of Man.20 

Writing and the Alphabet.22 

II. The Ancient Orient 

The Lands of the Near East.27 

The Peoples of the Near East.30 

Social Conditions.39 

Economic Conditions.41 

Commerce and Commercial Routes.43 

Law and Morality.46 

Religion.49 

Literature and Art.53 

Science.55 

Orient and Occident.57 

III. Greece 

The Lands of the West.60 

The Mediterranean Basin.64 

The A^geans.67 

The Greeks.69 

The Greek City-States.75 

Colonial Expansion of Greece.79 

The Persian Wars, 499-479 b.c.81 

Athens, 479-431 b.c.87 

Athenian Culture.90 

Decline of the Greek City-States, 431-338 b.c. . . 93 

Alexander the Great, and the Conquest of Persia . 98 

The Hellenistic Age.102 


Vll 
























• • • 


Contents 


vin 


CHAPTER 

IV. Rome 

Italian Peoples. 

The Romans. 

The Roman City-State. 

Expansion of Rome over Italy, 509 (?)-264 b.c. 
Expansion of Rome beyond Italy, 264-133 b.c. 
Rome the Mistress of the Mediterranean Basin 
Decline of the Roman City-State, 133-31 b.c. 
The Early Empire, 31 b.c-284 a.d. 

The World under Roman Rule 
Christianity in the Roman World 
The Later Empire, 284—476 a.d. 

V. The Middle Aces 

The Germans. 

The Holy Roman Empire .... 

The Northmen and the Normans 

Feudalism. 

The Byzantine Empire. 

The Arabs and Islam, 622-1058 
The Crusades, 1095-1291 .... 

Mongoloid Peoples in Europe to 1453 
National States during the Later Middle Ages 


VI. Medieval Civilization 
The Church 
The Clergy 
The Papacy 
Country Life 
Serfdom 
City Life 
Civic Industry 
Civic Trade 
Cathedrals and Uni\ 


ersities 


National Languages during the Later Middle Ages 


VII. The Renaissance 

Revival of Learning and Art in Italy 
Revival of Learning and Art beyond Italy 
Geographical Discovery .... 

Colonial Empires. 

The Old World and the New . 

The Protestant Reformation 

The Protestant Sects .... 

I he Catholic Counter Reformation 
The Religious Wars .... 

1 he European State System 


page 

. 108 
. Ill 
. 115 

. 118 
. 120 
. 126 
. 130 

. 136 

. 142 

. 145 

. 150 


. 154 

. 158 

. 164 

. 166 
. 173 

. 177 

. 184 

. 187 

. 191 


. 200 
. 205 

. 208 
. 211 
. 215 
. 218 
. 222 
. 225 

. 228 
. 232 


. 236 
. 241 

. 244 

. 250 
. 252 
. 254 
. 261 
. 264 
. 267 

. 276 






















Contents 


IX 


CHAPTER PAGE 

VIII. The Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries in Europe 

Absolutism and the Divine Right of Kings . . . 279 

The Struggle against Stuart Absolutism in England . 280 

The Restoration and the “Glorious Revolution” . . 289 

Absolutism of Louis XIV in France, 1643-1715 . . 295 

Russia under Peter the Great, 1689-1725 .... 301 

Russia under Catherine II, 1762-1796 .... 306 

Austria and Maria Theresa, 1740-1780 .... 308 

Prussia and Frederick the Great, 1740-1786 . . . 309 

The Partitions of Poland, 1772-1795 .... 314 

IX. Commerce and Colonies during the Seventeenth and 
Eighteenth Centuries 

Mercantilism and Trading Companies .... 319 

The Dutch Colonial Empire.321 

Rivalry of France and England in India (to 1763) . 324 

Rivalry of France and England in North America . 328 

The American Revolution, 1776-1783 .... 334 

Formation of the United States.341 

Progress of Geographical Discovery .... 343 

X. The Old Regime 

Reform.346 

The Privileged Classes.347 

The Unprivileged Classes ...... 350 

The Church.352 

Liberal Ideas of Industry and Commerce; the Economists 355 
The Scientists ......... 356 

Liberal Ideas of Religion and Politics; the English 

Philosophers ........ 359 

The French Philosophers ...... 361 

The Enlightened Despots ...... 364 

XI. The Revolutionary and Napoleonic Era, 1789-1815 

Eve of the French Revolution.367 

The Estates-General, 1789 ...... 371 

Outbreak of the French Revolution.374 

The National Assembly, 1789-1791 .... 376 

The First French Republic, 1792 . 379 

The National Convention, 1792-1795 .... 384 

The Directory and Napoleon, 1795-1799 . . . 388 

The Consulate, 1799-1804 . 391 

The First French Empire, 1804 394 

Napoleon at War with Europe, 1805-1807 . . .396 
Napoleon’s Reorganization of Europe .... 398 

The Continental System.400 










X 


Contents 


CHAPTER 

Revolt of the Nations, 1808-1814 
Downfall of Napoleon, 1814-1815 
“Liberty, Equality, Fraternity” 

XII. The Democratic Movement in Europe, 1815-1848 


PAGE 

. 402 
. 406 
. 408 


Modern Democracy. 

The Congress of Vienna ...... 

Restoration of the Dynasties. 

Territorial Readjustments. 

“Metternichismus” and the Concert of Europe 
France and the “July Revolution,” 1830 
The “July Revolution” in Europe .... 
The “February Revolution” and the Second French 

public, 1848 . 

The “February Revolution” in Europe 


Re- 


411 

414 

415 
417 
421 
427 
429 

435 

437 


XIII. The National Movement in Europe, 1848-1871 

Modern Nationalism. 443 

Napoleon III and the Second French Empire . . 446 

Disunited Italy.. 

Victor Emmanuel II and Cavour. 453 

United Italy, 1859-1870 .. 

Disunited Germany. 459 

William I and Bismarck.462 

United Germany, 1864-1871 465 


XIV. The United Kingdom and the British Empire 

Parliamentary Reform, 1832 . 

Political Democracy, 1832-1867 .... 
Political Democracy, 1867-1918 .... 
Government of the United Kingdom 

The Irish Question. 

The British Empire. 

XV. The Continental Countries 

The Third French Republic. 

Italy, Spain, Portugal, and Belgium 

Switzerland, Holland, Denmark, Norway, and Sweden 

The German Empire, 1871-1918 

The Dual Monarchy, 1867-1918 

The Russian Empire 

* * • • • 

The Ottoman Empire and the Balkan States 


472 

476 

480 

482 

487 

493 


500 

505 

510 

514 

519 

522 

529 


XVI. Colonial Expansion and World Politics 
Greater Europe .... 
The Opening-up of Africa 
The Partition of Africa . 


540 

542 

546 













Contents 


xi 


CHAPTER 


XVII. 


XVIII. 


XIX. 


XX. 


The Opening-up and Partition of Asia 
India ...... 

China. 

Japan ...... 

The Opening-up and Partition of Oceania 
Australia and New Zealand 

Canada . 

Latin America .... 

The United States 
Close of Geographical Discovery 

The Industrial Revolution 

Modern Industrialism 
The Great Inventions 
Effects of the Great Inventions 
Improvements in Transportation 
Improved Communication 
Commerce .... 

Agriculture and Land Tenure 
The Labor Movement 
Government Regulation of Industry 
Public Ownership . . . 

Socialism. 

Poverty and Progress 

Modern Civilization 

Internationalism. 

Social Betterment ..... 
Emancipation of Women and Children 
Popular Education and the Higher Learning 
Religious Development .... 

Science. 

Philosophy and Literature 
Music and the Fine Arts 

International Relations, 1871-1914 

The Triple Alliance .... 

The Dual Alliance and the Triple Entente 

Colonial Problems. 

The Eastern Question .... 

Militarism. 

Pan-Germanism .... 

The World War, 1914-1918 
Beginning of the War, 1914 
The Western Front .... 

The Eastern Front. 


PAGE 

551 

554 

556 

561 

565 

567 

569 

571 

575 

580 


584 

586 

592 

596 

600 

603 

609 

613 

615 

619 

621 

626 


630 

633 

637 

640 

642 

647 

652 

654 


657 

659 

663 

666 

670 

674 


678 

684 

690 




















xii Contents 

CHAPTER pAGE 

The Balkan and Italian Fronts.692 

The War outside of Europe and on the Sea, 1914-1917 696 

Intervention of the United States.700 

The Russian Revolution ....... 707 

End of the War, 1918.710 

XXI. The World Settlement, 1919-1922 

The Peace Conference ....... 716 

Peace with Germany . . . . . # .718 

Peace with Austria, Hungary, Bulgaria, and Turkey . 721 

1 he New Nations in Central Europe .... 723 

The New Nations in Eastern Europe .... 726 

Democracy and Socialism ...... 728 

Economic Reconstruction . . . . . , .733 

The League of Nations. 735 

The Disarmament Conference. 741 

Table of Events and Dates . . 7J c 

Index .753 






LIST OF MAPS 


Between 36 and 
. . Facing 

Between 60 and 


Successors 


c.) 


Facing 
• • 
Facing 


Facing 


Europe in the Ice Age. 

Distribution of Semitic and Indo-European Peoples . 

Physical Asia (double page) .... Between 26 and 
Solomon’s Kingdom 
The Ancient Orient (double page) 

Colonization of the Mediterranean 
Physical Features of Europe (double page) 

Racial Types in Western Europe 
The Mediterranean Basin 
Greek Conquests and Migrations 
The Persian Invasions of Greece 
The Athenian Empire at its Height 
Growth of Macedonia . 

(1) Empire of Alexander (2) Kingdoms of his 
The World according to Ptolemy 
The ALtolian and Achaean Leagues (about 229 d. 

Distribution of the Early Inhabitants of Italy 

Rome in Italy. 

Rome and Carthage at the Beginning of the Second Punic War 
Roman Empire at its Greatest Extent (double page) Between 136 and 

St. Paul’s Travels. 

Prefectures of the Roman Empire about 395 
Europe at the Deposition of Romulus Augustulus, 476 
Teutonic Migrations and Conquests 
Europe in the Age of Charlemagne, 800 
Europe in the Age of Otto the Great, 962 . 

The Byzantine Empire during the Tenth and Eleventh 
Expansion of Islam ..... 

Asia under the Mongols .... 

The British Isles during the Middle Ages . 

Unification of France during the Middle Ages 
L T nification of Spain during the Middle Ages 
Growth of Christianity from the Fifth to the Fourteenth Century 

(double page). Between 202 and 

Plan of Hitchin Manor, Hertfordshire ....... 

Trade Routes between Northern and Southern Europe ... 

Behaim’s Globe. 

Portuguese and Spanish Colonial Empires in the Sixteenth Century 
(double page) . Between 252 and 


Facing 
. Facing 
Facing 
• • • 
Centuries 

Facing 

Facing 


PAGE 

4 

21 

27 

35 

37 

44 

61 

62 

66 

70 

83 

88 

96 

102 

104 

106 

109 

120 

122 

137 

149 

152 

154 

158 

160 

162 

174 

182 

190 

192 

194 

197 

203 

212 

227 

247 

253 


xm 






XIV 


List of Maps 


Extent of the Reformation, 1524-1572 .... 

The Netherlands at the Truce of 1609 
Europe at the End of the Thirty Years’ War, 1648 . 

Acquisitions of Louis XIV and Louis XV . 

Europe after the Peace of Utrecht, 1713 
Growth of Russia to the End of the Eighteenth Century 

The Ottoman Empire to 1683 . 

Growth of Prussia to the End of the Eighteenth Century 
Partitions of Poland, 1772, 1793, 1795 .... 

English Trading Companies. 

India. 

North America after the Peace of Paris, 1783 
Colonial Empires in the Eighteenth Century (double page) 

Between 

Europe at the Beginning of the French Revolution 
Revolutionary France and Italy . 

First French Empire, 1812 .... 

Europe after the Congress of Vienna, 1815 
The Netherlands in the Nineteenth Century 
Poland in the Nineteenth Century 
Unification of Italy, 1815-1870 
The Germanic Confederation, 1815-1866 
Unification of Germany, 1815-1871 

Alsace-Lorraine. 

Ireland. 

Growth of the British Empire 

The British Empire. 

The Hapsburg Dominions, 1273-1914 . 

Russia in Europe during the Nineteenth Centur. 

The Ottoman Empire, 1683-1914 . 

Balkan States in 1878 and 1913 . 

The World Powers, 1815 

Peoples of Africa. 

Religions of Africa. 

Exploration and Partition of Africa (double pag 

The Peoples of Asia. 

The European Advance in Asia (double page) 

Expansion of Buddhism .... 

The World Powers (double page) 

The Pacific Ocean. 

Exclusion of Spain and Portugal from South America 
Relief Map of the Panama Canal 
North America since 1783 .... 

Discoveries in the Polar Regions . 

Economic Europe (double page) 

Industrial England in the Twentieth Century 


Facing 

9 9 

Facing 

9 9 

Facing 

Facing 

Facing 


Between 


) Between 


Between 


Between 


344 and 
Facing 
Facing 
Facing 
Facing 


Facing 

Facing 


Facing 
498 and 
Facing 
• • 
Facing 
Facing 
Facing 


548 and 
Facing 
554 and 

• 9 

560 and 
Facing 
Facing 


Facing 
Between 586 and 


PAGE 

261 

269 

276 

297 

300 

301 
308 
314 
316 
320 
326 
339 

345 

366 

388 

398 

418 

430 

432 

457 

460 

466 

470 

488 

494 

499 

520 

523 

530 

538 

540 

543 

545 

549 

552 

555 

557 

561 

566 

572 

578 

578 

582 

587 

593 







List of Maps 


Occupations of Mankind. 

Commercial Development of the World (double page) 

Between 

Density of the World’s Population ..... 
Languages of the World ....... 

Religions of the World. 

Europe in 1871. 

Berlin-to-Bagdad Railway ....... 

Europe in 1914. 

Plan of the Battle of the Marne ...... 

The Western Front. 

The Eastern Front ........ 

The Italian Front . . 

German Barred Zone. 

North Sea Mine Fields .. 

The World War in 1918. 

Europe after the Peace Conference at Paris (double page) 

Between 

The Peoples of Europe at the Beginning of the Twentieth 
(double page) ....... Between 



XV 


PAGE 

Facing 

594 

606 and 

607 

Facing 

626 

Facing 

632 

• • 

643 

Facing 

658 

• • 

667 

Facing 

674 

• • 

685 

• • 

688 

• • 

691 

• • 

695 

• • 

699 

• • 

703 

• 

705 

722 and 

723 

Century 


730 and 

731 








LIST OF PLATES 


Illuminated Manuscript (frontispiece). facing page 

Stonehenge ........... 14 

Great Pyramid of Gizeh ........ 56 

The Vaphio Gold Caps ........ 68 

Hermes and Dionysus ......... 78 

Temple of Poseidon at Paestum ....... 79 

Acropolis of Athens (Restored) . . . . . . 90 - 

Acropolis of Athens from the Southwest ..... 91 

Pericles ........... 96 

Demosthenes .......... 96 

Julius Caesar ........... 134 v 

Augustus Caesar . . . . . . . . . .134 

The Palaces of the Caesars . . . . . . . .135 

The Roman Forum (Restored) ....... 140 

The Roman Forum To-day ........ 141 

Oriental, Greek and Roman Coins . . . . . . .150 

Ancient and Medieval Gems . . . . . . . .151 

Rheinstein Castle .......... 172 

Sancta Sophia, Constantinople . . . . . . .173 

St. Peter’s, Rome .......... 208 

The Campanile and Doge’s Palace, Venice ..... 228 

Reims Cathedral ........... 229 

Ghiberti’s Bronze Doors at Florence ...... 240 

Dante ............ 244 

Shakespeare ........... 244 

Luther ........... 256 

Calvin ........... 256 ^ 

Philip II.270 

Elizabeth ........... 271 

Oliver Cromwell .......... 284 * 

Louis XIV ........... 300 

Peter the Great .......... 301' 

Frederick the Great . . . . . . . . 310 

The Taj Mahal, Agra ......... 324 

Washington . . . . . . . . . . .338 

Voltaire ........... 362 

Rousseau . . . . . . . . . ... 362 ' 

Napoleon as First Consul ........ 392 

“1807”.393 

The Battle of Trafalgar ........ 396 

William Pitt, the Younger ........ 397 

xvi 










List of Plates xvii 

FACING PAGE, 

The Congress of Vienna ........ 416 

Prince Metternich . . . . . . . . . .417 

Napoleon III .......... 446 

Cavour ........... 456 

Garibaldi ........... 456 

Bismarck ........... 464 

Moltke ............ 464 

Gladstone ........... 480 

Disraeli ........... 480 

Houses of Parliament, London ....... 486 

Choir of Westminster Abbey ........ 487 

Thiers .502 

Gambetta ........... 502 

The Congress of Berlin ......... 536 

Constantinople and the Bosporus ....... 537 

Landing of Commodore Perry’s Expedition in Japan . . . 562 

Benjamin Watt .......... 590 

Robert Fulton .......... 590 

Early Passenger Trains ........ 591 

Charles Darwin .......... 650 

Louis Pasteur .......... 650 

Immanuel Kant .......... 651 

Herbert Spencer .......... 651 

View of Paris from an Airplane . . . . . . .718 

The Peace Conference, 1919 ........ 719 













BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 


Serious students of history should have access to the American Historical 
Review (1895 to date, quarterly) and the English Historical Review (1886 
to date, quarterly). Both journals contain articles by scholars and critical 
reviews of new books. Current History (1914 to date, monthly), though 
popular in character, often has valuable articles on subjects of contempo¬ 
rary interest. The same may be said of the National Geographical Maga¬ 
zine (1890 to date, monthly), and of Art and Archceology (1914 to date, 
monthly). These two periodicals make a special feature of illustrations. 

Good books on historical method include C. V. Langlois and Charles 
Seignobos, Introduction to the Study of History, translated by G. G. 
Berry (1898) ; H. B. George, Historical Evidence (1909) ; and J. M. 
Vincent, Historical Research (1911). Thoughtful essays on various aspects 
of historical study will be found in Frederic Harrison, The Meaning of 
History and Other Historical Pieces (2d ed., 1900) and J. H. Robinson, 
The New History (1912). Two other works calling for notice in this 
connection are J. T. Shotwell, An Introduction to the History of History 
(1922), being chiefly an account of ancient historiography, and G. P. 
Gooch, History and Historians in the Nineteenth Century (3d ed., 1920). 

For chronology, genealogies, lists of sovereigns, and other data refer¬ 
ence should be made to Ploetz’ Manual of Universal History, translated 
and enlarged by W. H. Tillinghast; G. P. Putnam, Tabular Views of 
Universal History; and Arthur Hassall, European History, 476-1920. The 
New International Year Book is a compendium of the world’s progress. 
The Statesman’s Year Book and the American Year Book are other annual 
publications devoted to current history. 

The most convenient collection of maps is W. R. Shepherd, Historical 
Atlas. Hammond’s New Historical Atlas by Ramsay Muir; E. W. Dow, 
Atlas of European History; and Robertson and Bartholomew, An Historical 
Atlas of Modern Europe from 1789 to 1914 are also very serviceable. 
Much use can be made of the Literary and Historical Atlas of Europe 
in “Everyman’s Library.” Other atlases in the same collection are de¬ 
voted to Asia, Africa and Australasia, and America, respectively. 

Two comprehensive bibliographies are: Andrews, Gambrill, and Tall, 
A Bibliography of History for Schools and Libraries (2d ed., 1915) and 
C. K. Adams, A Manual of Historical Literature (3d ed., 1889). For 
more advanced study reference should be made to the bibliographies 
appended to each chapter of the Cambridge Ancient History, the Cam¬ 
bridge Medieval History, and the Cambridge Modern History. 

The rapid advance of archaeological knowledge makes all but the most 
recent treatments soon out of date. The following books may be noted: 


XVlll 


XIX 


Bibliographical Note 

Sir Arthur Keith, The Antiquity of Man (1915); W. J. Sollas, Ancient 
Hunters and Their Modern Representatives (2d ed., 1915) ; H. F. Osborn, 
Men of the Old Stone Age (2d ed., 1916) ; M. C. Burkitt, Prehistory, a 
Study of Early Cultures in Europe and the Mediterranean Basin (1921) ; 
R. A. S. Macalister, A Text-hook of European Archceology (Vol. I, 1921) ; 
and J. M. Tyler, The New Stone Age in Northern Europe (1921). Clark 
Wissler, The American Indian (2d ed., 1922), deals with both the 
archaeology and the ethnology of the New World. 

Anthropological treatises include Sir E. B. Tylor, Primitive Culture 
(2 vols., 4th ed., 1901) and the same author’s Anthropology (1881), 
both old works but by no means obsolete; Sir J. G. Frazer, The Golden 
Bough, a Study in Magic and Religion (1922), being an abridgement 
of the twelve-volume work with the same title; and Carveth Read, 
The Origin of Man and of His Superstitions (1920). All these books are 
by British scholars. The somewhat different point of view of American 
scholars is reflected in such books as R. H. Lowie, Primitive Society 
(1920) ; A. A. Goldenweiser, Early Civilization (1922), and R. B. Dixon, 
The Racial History of Man (1922). Two recent books, translated from 
the German, are Wilhelm Wundt, Elements of Folk Psychology (1916) 
and F. Miiller-Lyer, The History of Social Development (1920). Each 
is interesting and suggestive; both must be used with caution. Friedrich' 
Ratzel, The History of Mankind, translated by A. J. Butler (3 vols., 
1896-1898), is the most ambitious attempt to summarize modern an¬ 
thropological knowledge of the world’s peoples and their culture. It 
is usefully illustrated. 

Sociological treatises differ widely in content. On the institutional 
side nothing better has yet appeared than Herbert Spencer, Principles 
of Sociology (3 vols., 1876-1896), but this famous work devotes an 
excessive amount of space to savage society and employs the comparative 
method in too uncritical a manner. Edward Westermarck, The Origin 
and Development of the Moral Ideas (2 vols., 2d ed., 1912-1917), and 
L. T. Hobhouse, Morals in Evolution (3d ed., 1915), are both masterly. 
W. G. Sumner, Folkways (1906), though not a formal treatise, is an 
original, deeply learned study of the sociological importance of usages, 
manners, customs, and morals. For the understanding of contemporary 
society in civilized lands, particularly in the United States, E. A. Ross, 
The Principles of Sociology (1920), is uniquely valuable. 

There are several general histories, prepared on an extensive scale. 
The Historians’ History of the World, 25 vols., is a compilation of 
extracts, good and bad, from a great number of historical writers. The 
History of All Nations, 24 vols., consists mainly of translations from 
German works and provides chiefly a political narrative. Another work, 
also based on a German original, is Helmolt’s The World’s History, 
8 vols. This is an effort, by no means unsuccessful, to combine an¬ 
thropology, geography, and history in one treatment. 

Short general histories, giving due space to cultural as well as to 
political topics, are not numerous. The publication of H. G. Wells, 


XX 


Bibliographical Note 


An Outline of History (2 vols., 1920; also in one volume abridged), 
was itself an historical event. Hendrik van Loon, The Story of Man¬ 
kind (1920), though written especially for children, can be read with 
profit by persons of riper years. There are three small but useful 
volumes by Charles Seignobos, translated under the titles History of 
Ancient Civilization (1906), History of Medieval and Modern Civiliza¬ 
tion (1909), and History of Contemporary Civilization (1909). Attention 
may also be called to such suggestive and well-written books as Winwood 
Reade, The Martyrdom of Man (1872); A. R. Cowan, Master Clues 
in World History (1914); and F. S. Marvin, The Living Past 
(2d ed., 1915). 

Comprehensive treatises on Oriental history by Duncker and Maspero; 
on Greek history by Grote, Curtius, Holm, Duruy, Abbott, and Bury; on 
Roman history by Mommsen, Ihne, Heitland, Ferrero, Merivale, and 
Gibbon; and on medieval and modern history by many other authors, 
are critically estimated in the bibliographies above mentioned. The 
following list is limited to a few r recent works, generally in one volume. 

The ancient Orient: J. H. Breasted, A History of Egypt (2d ed., 
1909) ; H. R. Hall, The Ancient History of the Near East (5th ed., 1920) ; 
and Morris Jastrow, The Civilization of Babylonia and Assyria (1915). 

Greece: G. W. Botsford, Hellenic History (1922); W. S. Ferguson, 
Greek Imperialism (1913) ; T. R. Glover, From Pericles to Philip (3d ed., 
1919) ; R. W. Livingstone (editor), The Legacy of Greece (1921) ; J. P. 
Mahaffy, What Have the Greeks Done for Alodern Civilization? (1909) ; 
J. C. Stobart, The Glory That Was Greece (2d ed., 1915) ; T. G. Tucker, 
Life in Ancient Athens (1906) ; and A. E. Zimmern, The Greek Common¬ 
wealth (3d ed., 1921). 

Rome: A. E. R. Boak, A History of Rome to 565 A. D. (1921); 
Sir Samuel Dill, Roman Society from Nero to Marcus Aurelius (2d ed., 
1905) ; and, by the same author, Roman Society in the Last Century of 
the Western Empire (2d ed., 1899) ; W. W. Fowler, Social Life at 
Rome in the Age of Cicero (1909); Tenney Frank, Roman Imperialism 
(1914); Charles Oman, Seven Roman Statesmen of the Later Republic 
(1902); J. C. Stobart, The Grandeur That Was Rome (2d ed., 1920); 
and T. G. Tucker, Life in the Roman World of Nero and St. Paul (1910). 

File Middle Age: G. B. Adams, Civilization During the Middle 
Ages (2d ed., 1914) ; James (Viscount) Bryce, The Holy Roman Empire 
(new r ed., 1904); C. H. Haskins, The Normans in European History 
(1915) ; F. J. C. Hearnshaw (editor), Medieval Contributions to Modern 
Civilization (1921); D. C. Munro and G. C. Sellery, Medieval Civiliza¬ 
tion (2d ed., 1907), being translated selections from standard works 
by French and German scholars; D. C. Munro, The Middle Ages 
(1921); H. O. Taylor, The Medieval Mind (2 vols., 3d ed., 1919); 
O. J. Thatcher and E. H. McNeal, Europe in the Middle Age (1920) ; 
and Lynn Thorndike, The History of Medieval Europe (1917). 

1 he Modern Age: W. C. Abbott, The Expansion of Europe, 1415-1789 
(2 vols., 1918) ; C. M. Andrews, The Historical Development of Modern 


Bibliographical Note 


xxi 


Europe (2vols., 1896-1898); H. E. Bourne, The Revolutionary 
Period in Europe, 1763-1815 (1914); Eduard Fueter, World History, 
1815-1920, translated by S. B. Fay (1922); C. J. H. Hayes, A Political 
and Social History of Modern Europe (2 vols., 1916) ; C. D. Hazen, 
Modern European History (1917); F. J. C. Hearnshaw, Main Currents 
of European History, 1815-1915 (1917); E. M. Hulme, The Renaissance, 
the Protestant Revolution, and the Catholic Counter Reformation in Con¬ 
tinental Europe (1915); E. Lipson, Europe in the Nineteenth Century 
(1916); W. A. Phillips, Modern Europe, 1815-1899 (5th ed., 1915); 
J. H. Rose, The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th 
ed., 1916) ; J. S. Schapiro, Modern and Contemporary European History 
(1918) ; Preserved Smith, The Age of the Reformation (1920) ; and H. O. 
Taylor, Thought and Expression in the Sixteenth Century (2 vols., 1920). 

The following collections of extracts from the sources are recom¬ 
mended for reading in connection with any good historical outline: Ida 
C. Thallon, Readings in Greek History (1914); G. W. Botsford and 
E. G. Sihler, Hellenic Civilization (1915); G. G. Coulton, A Medieval 
Garner (1915) ; and, by the same compiler, Social Life in Britain from 
the Conquest to the Reformation (2d ed., 1922) ; and Merrick Whitcomb, 
A Literary Source-Book of the Renaissance (2d ed., 1903). The six 
volumes forming Translations and Reprints from the Original Sources 
of European History (1894-1899) may also be noticed in this connection. 




WORLD HISTORY 


CHAPTER I 
PREHISTORIC TIMES 

The Study of History 

HISTORY is a narrative of what civilized men have 
thought or done in past times—whether a day, a year, 
a century, or a millennium ago. Since men do not 
live in isolation, but everywhere in association, his¬ 
tory is necessarily concerned with social groups and 
especially with states and nations. Just as biography 
describes the life of individuals, so history relates 
the rise, progress, and decline of human societies. 

History does not limit its attention to a fraction 
of the community to the exclusion of the rest. It 
does not deal solely with rulers and warriors, with 
forms of government, public affairs, and domestic 
or foreign wars. More and more, history becomes 
an account of the entire culture of a people. The 
historian wants to learn about their houses, furniture, 
costumes, and food; what occupations they fol¬ 
lowed; what schools they supported; what beliefs 
and superstitions they held; what amusements and 
festivals they enjoyed. Human progress in inven¬ 
tion, science, art, music, literature, morals, religion, 
and other aspects of civilization is what chiefly in¬ 
terests the historical student of to-day. 

Civilization is a recent thing. It began not more 
than five or six thousand years ago in the river valleys 


2 


Prehistoric Times 


of Egypt and western Asia. The Egyptians and 
Babylonians by this time were cultivating the soil, 
laying out roads and canals, working mines, building 
cities, organizing stable governments, and keeping 
written records. All the rest of the world was then 
inhabited by savage and barbarous peoples, who still 
dwell in the wilder and less accessible parts of every 
continent. 

The savage is a mere child of nature. He secures 
food from wild plants and animals; he knows nothing 
of metals, but makes his tools and weapons of wood, 
bone, and stone; he wears little or no clothing; and 
his home is merely a cave, a rock shelter, or a rude 
bark hut. Such miserable folk occupy the interior 
of South America, Africa, Australia, New Guinea, 
the Philippines, and other regions. Barbarism forms 
a transitional stage between savagery and civiliza¬ 
tion. The barbarian has gained some control of 
nature. He has learned to sow and reap the fruits 
of the earth—instead of depending entirely upon 
hunting and fishing for a food supply—to domesticate 
animals, and ordinarily to use implements of metal. 
Barbarous tribes at the present time include certain 
North American Indians, the Pacific Islanders, and 
most of the African negroes. 

The facts collected by modern science make it 
certain that early man was first a savage and then a 
barbarian before he reached anywhere the stage of 
civilization. We know this, not on the evidence of 
written records—early man made neither inscrip¬ 
tions nor books—but from the things which he left 
behind him in many parts of the world, particularly 
in Europe and the Mediterranean region. These 



Man’s Place in Nature 


3 


include a few of his own bones, many bones of 
animals killed by him, and a great variety of tools, 
weapons, and other objects. Systematic study of 
such remains began during the nineteenth century. 
The study is still in its infancy, but it has gone far 
enough to afford some idea of human progress before 
the rise of civilization. 

Man’s Place in Nature 

Astronomy and geology present a wonderful pic¬ 
ture of the earth in past ages. The astronomer tells 
us that space is for the most part mere emptiness, 
that at vast intervals in this emptiness are the so- 
called “fixed stars,”—flaming, incandescent masses 
of matter,—that the sun is such a star, and that it 
thre/w off, one by one, the planets of the solar system. 
Our earth thus separated from the parent sun prob¬ 
ably much more than a hundred million years ago. 

The geologist tells us that in process of time the 
cooling earth gradually raised over its molten in¬ 
terior a thin crust of fire-fused rocks. Then the 
steam in the atmosphere began to condense and, fall¬ 
ing upon this crust, formed the first rivers, lakes, and 
seas. The dust and rock particles in the water 
accumulated in layers, or strata, which hardened into 
the stratified rocks, such as sandstones and mudstones. 
They reach a total thickness of not less than fifty 
miles, it is estimated, and contain fossil remains of 
plants and animals. The fossils show that life began 
in lowly forms on the earth, and that all existing life 
has evolved from these earlier, lowlier forms. 

Most of geological time since the origin of the 
earth is divided into three great epochs. The first 
or Primary epoch saw the appearance of plants, such 




4 


Prehistoric Times 


as seaweeds, mosses, ferns, and finally of huge¬ 
stemmed trees, whose abundant vegetation formed 
our coal measures. It saw also the appearance of 
animals, beginning with simple invertebrate crea¬ 
tures which lived in the water and passing to fishes 
and amphibians. The Secondary epoch was es- 



Discovery sites of Palaeolithic man: 1 , Piltdown; 2, Heidelberg; 3 , Neanderthal; 

4 , Cro-Magnon; 5, Briinn; 6, Furfooz; 7, Ofnet. 

pecially the age of enormous reptiles, whose skeletons 
are shown in museums. During this time bird-like 
animals developed and became true birds as they 
grew wings and modified their reptilian scales into 
feathers. In the third or Tertiary epoch there ap¬ 
peared for the first time a variety and abundance of 
mammals. Such is the record of the rocks for untold 
millions of years before the first traces of man. 

The Tertiary epoch was characterized by a semi- 
tropical climate, even in the Arctic region. Toward 










Man’s Place in Nature 


5 


ANTIQUITY OF MAN IN EUROPE 


Geological 

Periods 

Climatic 

Stages 

Animal 

Eiee 

Human 

Types 

Cultural 

Epochs 

Time 

Estimates 

Recent 


Modern 

Animals • 

Modern 

Races 

Later Iron Age 

Europe, 500 b.c. 

Early Iron Age 

Europe, 

1000—500 B.C. 
Orient, 

1800—1000 B.C. 

Copper-Bronze 

Age 

Europe, 

3000—1000 B.C. 
Orient, 

4000—1800 B.C. 

Neolithic or 
New Stone Age 

Europe, 7000 b.c. 

Postglacial 

Reindeer 

Musk Sheep 

Elk 

Steppe Horse 
Wild Ox 
(Aurochs) 

European Bison 
Cave Bear 

Woolly 

Rhinoceros 

Woolly 

Mammoth 

Hippopotamus 

Elephant 

Rhinoceros 

Saber-tooth 

Tiger 

Wild Boar 

Eynx 

Lion 

Hyaena 

Brown Bear 

Cro-Magnon 

Later Palaeo¬ 
lithic or 

Old Stone Age 

25,000 B.C. 

Ice Age 

IV. Glacial 

3. Interglacial 

Neanderthal 

Early 

Palaeolithic 

or 

Old Stone 

Age 

50,000 B.C. 

Piltdown 

150,000 B.C. 

III. Glacial 


Eolithic Age 

175,000 B.C. 

2 . Interglacial 

Heidelberg 

375,000 B.C. 

II. Glacial 


400,000 B.C. 

1. Interglacial 


475,000 B.C. 

I. Glacial 


500,000 B.C. 


the close of the Tertiary profound climatic changes 
began to occur in northern latitudes, producing what 
is called the Ice Age. An immense ice cap formed 
in the lands encircling the North Pole and gradually 
moved southward. North America to the valleys 
of the Ohio and the Missouri and Europe to the 
Rhine and the Thames were covered by an icy mass, 
estimated to have exceeded a mile in thickness. 
Great glaciers also arose in the Alps, Pyrenees, and 
Caucasus and descended from these mountains far 
into the plains. The Ice Age, despite its name, was 
not one of uninterrupted cold. There seem to have 































































6 


Prehistoric Times 


been four advances and retreats of the ice, resulting 
in as many more or less warm intervals. The ac¬ 
companying map represents Europe in the second 
glacial stage, the period of the greatest extension of 
ice fields and glaciers. Guesses about the duration 
of the Ice Age vary considerably; one estimate makes 
it begin about 500,000 years ago. The post-glacial 
stage may have begun about 25,000 years ago. 

The geography of Europe in the Ice Age was un¬ 
like what it is to-day. Considerable areas now sub¬ 
merged beneath the Atlantic Ocean were then dry 
land. Great Britain and Ireland formed part of the 
Continent, and no North Sea separated them from 
Scandinavia. The Mediterranean basin contained 
two inland seas. Europe was united to both Africa 
and Asia, where are now the strait of Gibraltar, the 
island of Sicily, and the Dardanelles. The land 
bridges thus formed afforded an easy entrance into 
Europe for the great African and Asiatic mammals, 
and perhaps for earliest man. 

The first traces of man in Europe are associated 
with the Ice Age. In 1907 a human lower jaw was 
found in a sand pit near Heidelberg, Germany. It 
lay about eighty feet below the surface, in company 
with the remains of various animals, including an 
elephant and a rhinoceros. The jaw presents several 
remarkable features. It is the largest human jaw 
known; it entirely lacks a chin; and its narrowness 
behind probably did not give the tongue sufficient 
play for articulate speech. Heidelberg man, as we 
may call him, must have been a strange-looking 
creature. He has been assigned to the second inter¬ 
glacial stage. 


Man’s Place in Nature 


7 


Another important discovery was made in 1912. 
A gravel bed at Piltdown, in the English county of 
Sussex, yielded human remains, consisting of part of 
a skull, a lower jaw, and several teeth, together with 
bones of the hippopotamus, rhinoceros, and other 
animals. This “find” has excited immense interest, 
because Piltdown man is the most ancient type in 
which the form of the head and the size of the brain 
are approximately known. The skull is of extraor¬ 
dinary thickness, far greater than that of any modern 
men. Judging from its shape and size, it held a 
comparatively undeveloped brain. The jaw is even 
less human, especially in the absence of a chin. The 
teeth likewise exhibit non-human characteristics, be¬ 
ing considerably larger than those of existing men. 
Piltdown man is thought to have lived during the 
third interglacial stage, though some authorities as¬ 
sign to him a still greater antiquity. 

The next important discovery of human fossils was 
made as far back as 1856, but its significance was not 
at first recognized. In that year some workmen, 
clearing a small cave in the valley known as the 
Neanderthal, Rhenish Prussia, came upon a human 
skeleton. The cranium and various bones of the 
body were secured for purposes of study. The most 
striking features of the skull are its thickness, the low, 
retreating forehead, and the prominent eyebrow 
ridges. As long as this skull remained the only one 
of its kind, scientists could argue that it belonged 
to an idiot or to a diseased person. But during the 
last half century nearly thirty other examples have 
been found, thus proving the former existence of 
Neanderthal man in western Europe. In appear- 


8 


Prehistoric Times 


ance, he was short (about five-feet, three inches), 
thickset, heavy-browed, heavy-jawed, and with a 
receding chin. His body was probably hairy. His 
thumb seems to have been less flexible than that of 
modern men. His head, looked at from above, was 
very narrow, and he could not walk absolutely erect. 
Neanderthal man lived during the fourth glacial 
stage, along with the cave bear, cave lion, cave 
hyaena, and other animals now extinct. 

Thousands of years passed before there appeared 
in Europe another human type, called Cro-Magnon, 
from the name of a French cave where five skeletons 
were unearthed in 1868. Cro-Magnon man, as we 
know from these and other examples, was tall, with 
a broad face, a prominent nose, slightly developed 
eyebrow ridges, well-developed chin, and a large 
brain. His physical and mental development places 
him close to modern man, though he lived during 
early postglacial times, when the woolly mammoth, 
woolly rhinoceros, bison, reindeer, and wild steppe 
horse still ranged throughout western Europe. 

Western Europe, the scene of so much of later 
history, is thus unique in providing us with the 
physical evidence for human evolution. Though 
the evidence is incomplete, we already know that 
during a period probably several hundred thousand 
years long, man was slowly working upward from an 
almost brute-like state. Something about the cul¬ 
tural development of Heidelberg, Piltdown, Nean¬ 
derthal, and Cro-Magnon men is also known. 

The Old Stone Age 

It takes an effort to visualize the condition of the 
earliest men. They were naked, fireless, houseless, 


The Old Stone Age 


9 


without tools and weapons, without even articulate 
speech, and with nothing but their human hands and 
brains to secure food and protect themselves from the 
wild animals on every side. There are no living 
savages so low as this, for all use tools, make fire, 
construct shelters against rain and wind, speak elab¬ 
orate languages, and possess other elements of culture. 
The earliest men started without any culture. They 
had to acquire it by their own unaided efforts. 

Man’s first tools and weapons were those that lay 
ready to his hand. A branch from a tree served as a 
spear; a thick stick in his strong arms became a club; 
while stones picked up at haphazard were thrown as 
missiles or used as pounders to crack nuts and crush 
big marrow bones. Eventually, man discovered that 
a shaped implement was far more serviceable than 
an unshaped one, and so he began chipping flints into 
rude hatchets, knives, spearheads, borers, and the like. 
Such objects are called palaeoliths (old-stones), and 
the period when they were produced is therefore 
known as the Palaeolithic, or Old Stone Age. It 
seems to have begun in the third interglacial stage 
and probably lasted more than a hundred thousand 
years. 

Many authorities hold that an Eolithic (Dawn 
Stone) Age preceded the Palaeolithic. Eoliths are 
small, rough stones, one part shaped as if to be held 
in the hand and the other part edged or pointed as 
for cutting. Some may be natural productions, but 
others seem to be of human workmanship. Eoliths 
have been found as far back as the beginning of the 
Ice Age and even earlier in the Tertiary epoch. If 
man really did make them, they must be regarded as 
the earliest evidences of his life on the earth. 


IO 


Prehistoric Times 


No slight skill is required to chip a flint along one 
face or both faces, until it takes a symmetrical form. 
But practice makes perfect, and the Palaeolithic Age 
for the most part shows steady progress in manufac¬ 
turing not only stone implements, but also those of 
bone, mammoth ivory, and reindeer horn. Many 
different kinds of implements, adapted to special uses, 
were gradually produced. In addition to those just 
mentioned, we find awls, wedges, saws, drills, chisels, 
barbed harpoons, and even so neat a device as a spear- 
thrower. Bone and wooden handles were also de¬ 
vised, thus adding immensely to the effectiveness of 
tools and weapons. 

Palaeolithic man learned fire-making. Just how, 
we cannot say. Probably he struck a piece of iron 
pyrites with a flint and then allowed the sparks to 
fall into a bed of dry leaves or moss. Some savages 
still do this, though more often they produce fire by 
rubbing two pieces of wood together. The discovery 
of fire made it possible for man to cook food, instead 
of eating it raw, to smoke meats and thus preserve 
them indefinitely, to protect himself at night against 
animal enemies, and to make his cave home comfort¬ 
able. Later, the use of fire enabled him to bake clay 
into pottery and to smelt the metals, but these great 
steps in progress were not taken in Palaeolithic times. 

The men of the Old Stone Age doubtless passed 
much of their time in the open, following the game 
from place to place, and, when night came on, camp¬ 
ing out under the stars. They built huts, also. Some 
of their pictures represent rude structures with a 
central pole and occasionally with props on either 
side. More commonly they took shelter under rock 
ledges and in caves, as some savages do to-day. Lime- 


II 


The Old Stone Age 

stone caverns, often very deep and roomy, are 
especially numerous in western Europe, where they 
seem to have been occupied by successive gen¬ 
erations for many centuries. Huge accumulations of 
ashes and charcoal, stone implements, bones of ani¬ 
mals, and sometimes those of man himself cover the 
floor of a Palaeolithic cave to a depth of many feet. 
These objects are often found sealed up tight in stal¬ 
agmite deposits formed by lime-burdened Avater 
dropping from the roof. What was man’s home has 
thus become a museum, only awaiting investigation 
by a trained student to reveal its story of the past 

Palaeolithic man at the outset must have lived on 
what nature supplied in the way of wild berries, nuts, 
roots, herbs, honey, the eggs of wild fowl, shellfish,’ 
and grubs, and on the small animals Avhich he could 
kill by throwing stones and sticks. As his implements 
improved and his skill increased, he became a fisher, 
trapper, and hunter of big game. He killed and ate 
the woolly mammoth, hippopotamus, European bison, 
reindeer, and especially the steppe horse, which at 
one time roamed in great herds over western Europe. 
There is a Palaeolithic station in France estimated to 
contain the bones of one hundred thousand horses. 
The pelts of the slain animals were made into covers 
and clothing, as we know from the discovery of flint 
skin scrapers and bone needles. 

Some of these cave dwellers were talented artists. 
They decorated stone and bone implements with en¬ 
gravings, modeled figures in clay, made stone and 
ivory statuettes, and covered the walls of their cavern 
homes with a variety of paintings in red, yellow, 
brown, and other vivid colors. The subjects are gen¬ 
erally animals, though a few representations of the 


12 


Prehistoric Times 


human form have also been found. The best Palaeo¬ 
lithic pictures are remarkably life-like, far surpassing 
the efforts of modern savages. The men who made 
them were evidently close observers of animal life. 

The cave dwellers apparently had a rude form of 
religion. Bodies buried in caves were sometimes sur¬ 
rounded by offerings of food, implements, and 
ornaments, which must have been intended for the 
use of the deceased. Such funeral rites point to a 
belief in the soul and in its survival after death. 

There are other aspects of Palaeolithic culture 
about which little or nothing can be learned with 
certainty. We can only surmise, from what is known 
of present-day savages, that even at this remote period 
people had begun to cooperate in hunting and for 
defense against animal and human foes. Each group 
must have been small—a few hundred individuals at 
the most—for population was scanty. Government 
doubtless existed, but whether by chiefs or by the 
elders of the little community we cannot say. Prob¬ 
ably the family had also appeared, and men and 
women were beginning to live together more or less 
permanently under some form of marriage. The 
social life of man is very ancient, as well as his 
religion, art, and material culture. 

The New Stone Age 

The Neolithic or New Stone Age, when men began 
to grind and polish some of their stone implements 
after chipping them, dawned in Europe probably 
less than ten thousand years ago. The map of Europe 
in this period presented nearly the same outlines as 
to-day. Great Britain and Ireland were now separ¬ 
ated from the Continent by the shallow waters of the 


13 


The New Stone Age 

North Sea, English Channel, and Irish Sea. Owing 
to the sinking of the Mediterranean area, Spain and 
Italy were no longer joined to North Africa by land 
bridges. The plants which flourished in colder 
Palaeolithic times gave place to those characteristic 
of a temperate climate, and vast forests began to cover 
what had formerly been treeless steppes. The woolly 
rhinoceros, woolly mammoth, and cave bear became 
extinct; the musk sheep and reindeer retreated to 
Arctic latitudes, while the hippopotamus, elephant, 
and other big mammals found their way to tropical 
zones. The animals associated with Neolithic men 
represented species familiar to us, except for some 
survivals, such as the elk, wild boar, and European 
bison. 

We do not yet know what became of Palaeolithic 
men. They may have become extinct; they may have 
followed the retreating ice sheet and the retreating 
reindeer toward the northeast into Siberia and Arctic 
America; or they may have remained in their old 
locations and intermingled with the invading Neo¬ 
lithic peoples. These newcomers apparently came 
from western Asia and northern Africa, and gradu¬ 
ally spread over all Europe. The Neolithic peoples 
belonged to the White Race. Their blood flows in 
the veins of modern Europeans, who are chiefly their 
descendants. 

Our knowledge of the Neolithic Age comes, not 
from deep-lying or sealed-up deposits, such as those 
in Palaeolithic caves, but from remains found on or 
near the surface of the soil or in rubbish heaps and 
burial places. Along the Baltic coast stretch huge 
mounds of bones and shells, marking the sites of for¬ 
mer camping places. These “kitchen middens,” to 


Prehistoric Times 


give them their Danish name, are sometimes a thou¬ 
sand feet long, two to three hundred feet wide, and 
ten feet high. Implements of stone, bone, and wood, 
together with pieces of pottery and other things of 
human workmanship, are found in the “kitchen mid¬ 
dens.” Switzerland affords numerous remains of lake 
dwellers, who, for protection against their enemies, 
lived over the water in huts resting on sharpened 
piles driven into the bottom of the lake. The huts 
have disappeared, but the mud about the piles con¬ 
tains thousands of objects, including animal bones, 
seeds of various plants and fruits, implements, shreds 
of coarse cloth, fragments of pottery, household uten¬ 
sils, and bits of furniture. Neolithic men also erected 
many stone monuments, either single pillars (men¬ 
hirs) or groups of pillars (dolmens). The former 
often marked a grave; the latter usually served as 
sepulchers for the dead. They are rude memorials 
of far-off times and vanished peoples. 

The Neolithic Age covered only a brief space of 
time, as compared with its predecessor, but it was 
an age of rapid progress. Neolithic implements, 
though still of stone, bone, and wood, were often of 
exceeding beauty and finish, particularly arrowheads 
(testifying to the invention of the bow), and stone axes 
with a sharp cutting edge. The men of the “kitchen 
middens” began to make pottery, chiefly for cooking 
vessels, and they domesticated the dog. The lake 
dwellers possessed goats, sheep, and swine, as well as 
dogs, plaited baskets, spun and wove textiles, pre¬ 
pared leather, built boats, used wheeled carts, and, 
most important of all, cultivated some of the cereals, 
including wheat, barley, and millet. The new sources 
of food thus opened up enabled Neolithic peoples 



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The Age of Metals 


15 


to abandon the migratory life of hunters and to settle 
in permanent villages. Their community life must 
have been well organized, for the erection'of lake 
dwellings and stone monuments required the cooper¬ 
ation of many individuals. In short, Neolithic 
peoples were not savages; they had passed from sav¬ 
agery to barbarism. 

Neolithic culture was not confined to Europe. It 
also existed in western Asia, in Egypt, in North 
Africa, and on the islands of Cyprus and Crete. The 
entire basin of the Mediterranean formed a Neolithic 
center. Here the transition to the use of metals first 
occurred. 


The Age of Metals 

Civilization rests on the metals. Stone is not plia¬ 
ble; it is very apt to split in use; and it is ground 
and polished only with great difficulty. In time men 
began to seek substitutes in the softer and more easily 
worked metals—gold, silver, tin, and copper. These 
are often found in a pure state and not as ores, so 
that they can be readily extracted and worked cold. 
The American Indians in this way got pure copper 
from mines near Lake Superior and made metal 
spearheads, knives, and hatchets, which were modeled 
on stone implements. Other barbarous peoples have 
done the same thing. In fact, hammering the metals 
generally preceded smelting them. 

Credit for the invention of metallurgy belongs to 
the Egyptians. Some of the most ancient graves in 
Egypt, dating from about 4000 B. C., contain needles 
and chisels made by smelting the crude copper ore 
found in the Nile Valley. At a very early period the 
Egyptians began to work the copper mines on the 



i6 


Prehistoric Times 


peninsula of Sinai. The Babylonians probably ob¬ 
tained copper from the same region. Another source 
of copper was the island of Cyprus, which is rich in 
that metal. The very name of the island means “cop¬ 
per” (Greek Kupros). Copper implements gradu¬ 
ally spread into Europe, and with their use the 
Neolithic Age gave way to the Age of Metals. 

But copper implements were soft and would not 
keep an edge. Some ancient smith, more ingenious 
than his fellows, discovered that the addition of a 
small quantity of tin to the copper produced the 
much harder and tougher alloy called bronze. Where 
this simple but most important discovery took place, 
we cannot say. Bronze made its appearance in Egypt 
at least as early as 3000 B. C. and somewhat later in 
Cyprus, Crete, Asia Minor, and the coasts of Greece. 
Traders subsequently carried the new metal through¬ 
out the length and breadth of Europe. 

The great durability and hardness of iron must 
have been soon noticed by metallurgists, but, as com¬ 
pared with copper and tin, it was difficult both to 
mine and to smelt. Hence the introduction of iron 
occurred at quite a late period, and in some countries 
after the dawn of history. The Egyptians seem to 
have made little use of iron before 1500 B. C. They 
called it the “metal of heaven,” as if they obtained it 
from meteorites. In the first five books of the Bible 
iron is mentioned only thirteen times, though copper 
and bronze are referred to forty-four times. In the 
Homeric poems of the ancient Greeks we find iron 
considered so valuable that a lump of it is one of the 
chief prizes at athletic games. Western and northern 
Europe became acquainted with iron only in the last 
thousand years before Christ. 


Races of Man 


l 7 

The superior qualities of iron have secured for it 
preeminence among the metals. Nevertheless, peo¬ 
ples without any knowledge of iron are still met with 
in remote parts of the world. The Australian tribes, 
for instance, continue to make stone implements as 
rude as those of Palaeolithic man in Europe. The 
South Sea Islands, owing to their peculiar formation, 
produce no metals. Their inhabitants, when discov¬ 
ered a few centuries ago, were still in the Stone Age, 
and so ignorant of iron that they planted the first 
iron nails obtained from Europeans, in the hope of 
raising a new crop. Among the Malays and the 
African negroes the knowledge and use of iron also 
followed immediately upon the Stone Age. The 
American Indians, before the discovery of the New 
World, knew nothing of iron. Most of them used 
stone implements like those of Neolithic Europe, 
together with unsmelted copper, gold, and silver. In 
Mexico and Peru, however, smelted copper and 
bronze were also known. India, Indo-China, and 
China afford evidence of the regular succession in 
those regions of copper, bronze, and iron. 

Races of Man 

The. different races arose in prehistoric times as 
man gradually spread throughout the habitable earth. 
Racial distinctions are based on physical character¬ 
istics, especially skin color, head form, and texture of 
the hair. Thus, the black-skinned peoples have long, 
narrow heads and crisp, woolly hair. The yellow¬ 
skinned peoples, on the contrary, have short, broad 
heads and straight, lank hair. Less important racial 
distinctions are found in the shape of the nose as thin 
and prominent or large and flat, in the orbit of the 


i8 


Prehistoric Times 


eyes as horizontal or oblique (compare the ‘‘almond” 
eyes of Orientals), and in the extent to which the 
upper and lower jaws project beyond the line of the 
face. All these physical characteristics reflect the 
influence of climate and natural surroundings on 
early man in various parts of the world. They seem 
to have changed little or not at all during historic 
times. Five or six thousand years ago they were as 
marked as now, judging from pictures on old Egyp¬ 
tian monuments and from the examination of ancient 
skulls. 

Three primary varieties of man are distinguished: 
The Black (Negroid) Race, the Yellow (Mongo¬ 
loid) Race, and the White (Caucasian) Race. This 
classification is not altogether satisfactory. The 
Australians, among whom Negroid traits preponder¬ 
ate, nevertheless resemble Caucasians in some 
respects, and the Mongoloid Polynesians possess both 
Caucasian and Negroid resemblances; while impor¬ 
tant physical differences separate both Malays and 
American Indians from other members of the Yellow 
Race. Again, various peoples of Asiatic origin— 
Ottoman Turks, Bulgarians, Magyars or Hungarians, 
Esthonians, Finns, and Lapps—have so blended with 
Caucasian peoples in Europe as to lose almost entirely 
their Mongoloid characteristics. No race, indeed, is 
pure. Repeated migrations, raids, and conquests 
brought about racial intermixture everywhere. 

At the dawn of history each of the three races 
occupied quite distinct geographical areas. The Black 
Race held most of Africa south of the Sahara, south¬ 
ern India, New Guinea and the adjacent islands, and 
Australia. The Yellow Race held the north, east, 
and center of Asia, whence it spread over the Malay 




















































































































































































































































































































































Races of Man 


RACES, PEOPLES, AND LANGUAGES 


- ' - vMjnuLiO 

Races 

Peoples 

Languages 

Black or 
Negroid 

1. Negroes proper 

2. Bantu Negroes 

3. Dwarf Negroes or Pygmies 

4. Hottentots and Bushmen 

5. Dravidians (India) and Veddas 

(Ceylon) 

6. Papuans (in New Guinea and 

the Melanesian Islands) 

7. Australians 


Yellow or 
Mongoloid 

1. Mongolians proper (Chinese, 

Japanese, Koreans, Burmans, 
Siamese, Manchus, Mongols, 
Tatars, Tibetans, Siberian 
tribes, Turks, Bulgarians, 
Magyars or Hungarians, Es¬ 
tonians, Finns, Lapps) 

2. Malays (in Formosa, the Philip¬ 

pines, Malay Archipelago, 
Nicobar Islands, Madagascar) 

3. Polynesians (Maori of New 

Zealand, Tongans, Samoans, 
Hawaiians, etc.) 

4. American Indians 


I 

White or 
Caucasian 


1. Hamitic (Libyans, Egyptians, 

Eastern Hamites) 

2. Semitic (Babylonians, Assyrians, 

Phoenicians, Hebrews, Ara¬ 
maeans, Arabs, Abyssinians) 

3- Indo-European 

n. Asiatic (Hindus, Medes, Per¬ 
sians, Hittites, Armenians, 
Scythians) 

b. Graeco-Latin (Albanians, Greeks, 

Italians, Spaniards, Portu¬ 
guese, French, Walloons, 
Rumanians) 

c. Celtic (Bretons, Welsh, Irish, 

Highland Scots) 

d. Teutonic (Germans, Frisians, 

Dutch, Flemings, Danes, 
Norwegians, Swedes, Eng¬ 
lish, Lowland Scots) 

e. Lettic (Letts, Lithuanians) 

f. Slavic 

South Slavs (Serbians, Monte¬ 
negrins, Croatians, Slove¬ 
nians) 

West Slavs (Czechs, Slovaks, 
Poles) 

East Slavs (Great Russians, 
Little Russians or Ruthe- 
nians, White Russians) 


Archipelago, the islands of the Pacific, and the New 
World. The White Race was limited to Europe, 
northern Africa, and southwestern Asia. The last 
four centuries have seen a wonderful expansion of 
the White Race, which now chiefly populates the 
New World, South Africa, and Australasia. 










































20 


Prehistoric Times 


Excepting the American negroes, the Black Race 
is still in the savage or in the barbarian stage of cul¬ 
ture. The same holds true of the Yellow Race, with 
the important exceptions of the Chinese, Indo- 
Chinese, and Japanese. Civilization has been devel¬ 
oped and history has been made chiefly by the White 
Race. 

Languages of Man 

The different types of language also took shape 
during the prehistoric period. The first languages 
must have been simple enough. Man doubtless eked 
out his imperfect speech with expressive gestures and 
cries of alarm or passion, such as the lower animals 
make. But all this was very remote. The languages 
of even the lowest savages to-day are complex in struc¬ 
ture and copious in vocabulary, thus indicating how 
far they have developed in the course of ages. 

The thousands of languages and dialects now 
spoken throughout the world belong to one or other 
of three groups, (i) Agglutinating languages sho\v 
grammatical relations by adding (glueing) sounds 
and syllables to the main word. Thus the suffix lar 
in Turkish makes the plural ( ark an , rope, arkanlar, 
ropes) ; the suffix lyk indicates quality ( arkanlyk, the 
best kind of rope) ; and the suffix ly signifies posses¬ 
sion ( arkanly, with a rope, attached). English uses 
agglutination to a slight extent; compare such 
words as just-ly, un-just-ly, care-less, care-less-ness. 
(2) Isolating languages show grammatical relations 
chiefly by the order of the words. Thus in Chinese 
the word ta means “great,” “greatness,” or “greatly,” 
according to its position in the phrase. (3) In¬ 
flectional languages regularly employ conjugations 


21 


Languages of Man 

and declensions to set forth the relations of words 
to one another. 

These three linguistic groups have a fairly definite 
association with the races of man. Agglutinating 
languages are most widely diffused, being spoken by 
the Black Race and by part of the Yellow Race. 
Isolating languages are found only in Asia, among 
Chinese, Indo-Chinese, Tibetans, and Malays. In¬ 
flectional languages are confined to the White Race. 



The languages of the White Race belong, with 
some exceptions, to one or other of three families. 
Least important, historically, is the Hamitic family, 
named after Ham, a son of Noah ( Genesis , x, 1-6). 
Hamitic languages are still spoken in northern and 
eastern Africa, some of them by peoples who have 
more or less mixed with negroes. Ancient Egyptian 
was a Hamitic language. 

The second family is that of the Semitic languages, 
so called from Shem, another son of Noah ( Genesis, 
x, i, 22). Semitic-speaking peoples in antiquity 











































22 


Prehistoric Times 


included Babylonians, Assyrians, Hebrews, Phoeni¬ 
cians, and Arabs. To these must be added the 
Abyssinians of eastern Africa. The Semites, as the 
map shows, originally formed a compact group, but 
Arabs are now found everywhere in northern Africa, 
while Hebrews (Jews) have spread all over the 
world. 

The third family is that of the Indo-European 
languages. This name indicates that they are found 
in both India and Europe. The peoples using Indo- 
European languages in antiquity formed a widely 
extended group, which reached from India across 
Asia and Europe to the British Isles and Scandinavia. 
Hindus in India, Medes and Persians on the plateau 
of Iran, Greeks and Italians, and the inhabitants of 
eastern and western Europe spoke related tongues. 
Their likeness is illustrated by the common words 
for relationship. Terms such as “father,” “mother,” 
“brother,” and “daughter” occur with slight changes 
in form in nearly all the Indo-European languages. 
Thus, “father” in Sanskrit (the old Hindu language) 
is pitar in Iranian (ancient Persian), pidar/m Greek, 
pattr, in Latin, pater, and in German, Vater. There 
must have been at one time a single speech from 
which all the Indo-European languages have 
descended. But where it was spoken, whether in Asia 
or in Europe, we cannot determine. 

Writing and the Alphabet 

The first steps toward writing are prehistoric. We 
start with the drawings and paintings made in the 
Palaeolithic Age. Man, however, could not rest sat¬ 
isfied with simple representations of objects. He 
wanted to record thoughts and actions, and so his 


Writing and the Alphabet 23 

pictures tended to become symbols of ideas. The 

gure of an arrow might be used to indicate the idea 
o an enemy,” and two arrows directed against each 
ot er, the idea of a “fight.” Many savage and bar¬ 
barous peoples still have this symbolic picture writ¬ 
ing. The American Indians employed it in most 
elaborate fashion. On rolls of birch bark or the skins 
of animals they wrote messages, stories-, and songs 

and even preserved tribal annals extending over a 
century. 

A new stage in the development of writing was 
reached when the picture represented not an actual 
object or an idea, but a sound of the human voice. 
This difficult but all-important step appears to have 
been taken by means of the rebus. It is a way of 
expressing words by pictures of objects whose names 
resemble those words or the syllables in them. What 
makes the rebus possible is the fact that every lan¬ 
guage contains words having the same sound but 
different meanings. The old Mexicans, before the 
Spanish conquest, had gone so far as to write names 
of persons and places, rebus fashion. They repre¬ 
sented the proper name, Itzcoatl, by the picture of a 
snake ( coatl ), with a number of knives (itz) pro¬ 
jecting from its back. The Egyptian words for “sun” 
and “goose” were so nearly alike that the royal title, 
“Son of the Sun,” could be suggested by grouping the 
pictures of the sun and a goose. Rebus making is 
still a common amusement among children, but to 
early man it was a serious occupation. 

In the simplest form of sound writing each separ¬ 
ate picture or symbol stands for the sound of an entire 
word; hence there must be as many signs as there are 
words in the language. This is the case with Chinese 


24 


Prehistoric Times 


writing. A dictionary of Chinese contains approx¬ 
imately twenty-five thousand words in good usage, 
every one represented by a separate written sign. 
No student ever learns them all, of course. It is 
enough for ordinary reading and writing to be fa¬ 
miliar with three or four thousand signs. The Chi¬ 
nese seem to have entered upon the phonetic stage of 
writing in the second millennium, B. c v and since 
then they have never improved upon it. 

A more developed form of sound writing arises 
when signs are employed for the sounds of separate 
syllables. All the words of a language may then be 
written with comparatively few signs. The Babylo¬ 
nians and Assyrians possessed in their cuneiform writ¬ 
ing signs for between four and five hundred syllables. 
Recent discoveries in Crete indicate that the ancient 
inhabitants of that island had a somewhat similar 
system. The Japanese found it possible to express 
all the sounds in their language by forty-seven sylla¬ 
bles, one standing for ro, another for fa, and so forth. 

The signs for these syllables were taken from Chinese 
writing. 

The final stage in the development of writing is 
reached when the separate sounds of the human voice 
aie analyzed so far that each can be represented by 
a single letter. The Egyptians early made an alpha¬ 
bet. Unfortunately, they never abandoned their 
older methods of writing and learned to rely upon 
alphabetic signs alone. Egyptian hieroglyphs, in 
consequence, are a curious jumble of object-pictures, 
symbols of ideas, and signs for entire words, separate 
syllables, and letters. The writing is a museum of all 
the steps in the progress of writing from the picture 
to the letter. 


25 


Writing and the Alphabet 


As early, perhaps, as the tenth century, b. C v the 
Phoenicians of western Asia were in possession of an 
alphabet. It consisted of twenty-two letters each 
representing a consonant. The Phoenicians appear to 
have borrowed their alphabetic signs, but whether 
from the Egyptians or the Cretans, or even in part 
from the Babylonians, remains uncertain. The 
Greeks, according to their own traditions, imported 
the alphabet from Phoenicia and added signs for 
vowels. The Greek form of the Phoenician alphabet 
subsequently spread to Italy, where the Romans re¬ 
ceived it, modified some of the letters, and then passed 

it on to the peoples of western Europe. From them 
it has reached us. 


Two methods of writing developed in the ancient 
Orient. The Egyptians traced their hieroglyphic 
characters with a pen and a dark pigment upon papy¬ 
rus. This river reed grows plentifully in the Nile 
marshes. It was cut into strips, which were then 
glued together at the edges to form a roll. From 
papyros, the Greek name of the plant, has come our 
word “paper.” Similarly, the Greek biblion, a 
(papyrus) book, reappears in our word “Bible,” as 
well as in various words for “library” in European 
languages, such as the French bibliotheque and the 
German Bibhothek. The Babylonians impressed 
their cuneiform signs with a metal instrument on 
tablets of soft clay. The tablets were then baked hard 
in an oven. The Babylonian method of writing sur¬ 
vived for a time in the clay tablets of the Cretans 
and various Oriental peoples and in the waxen tab¬ 
lets of the Romans. It subsequently disappeared. 
The Egyptian method of writing still survives in the 
pen, ink, and paper of modern usage. 


26 


Prehistoric Times 


Before the invention of writing men were unable 
to keep a full and accurate record of the past. Such 
information as they possessed had to be handed down 
by oral tradition, which is notoriously untrustworthy. 
Writing alone enabled men widely separated in space 
and time to share a common knowledge and transmit 
it to future ages. They now had a record of the past 
which was exact, comprehensive, and ever growing 
with the growth of civilization. They now had a 
history. 

History, based on written records, begins in differ¬ 
ent countries at varying dates. Some inscriptions 
found in Egypt reach back as far as the fourth mil¬ 
lennium B. C. The annals of Babylonia are probably 
less ancient. Trustworthy records in China and 
India do not extend beyond 1000 B. C v while those of 
the Greeks and Romans are still later by several cen¬ 
turies. It was only after the opening of the Christian 
era that most European peoples began to emerge into 
the light of history. 

The whole historic age may be conveniently 
divided into three periods. Ancient history begins 
with Oriental peoples, who were the first to develop 
the arts of civilization, deals next with the Greeks, 
and ends with the Romans, who built up an empire 
embracing much of the civilized world. Medieval 
history is concerned with the peoples of eastern and 
western Europe. It includes a period of about a 
thousand years from the break-up of the Roman Em¬ 
pire at the end of the fifth century to the close of the 
fifteenth century. Modern history covers the last 
four hundred years and now embraces almost all 
mankind. It is no longer a history of Asia or of 
Europe, but of the world. 
















































































































































































































CHAPTER II 


THE ANCIENT ORIENT 

The Lands of the Near East 

The ancient Orient included Asia and that part of 
Africa, called Egypt, which was formerly considered 
as belonging to Asia. Our study of Oriental history 
may, however, omit consideration of the Far East. 
Wide seas, extensive mountain ranges, and trackless 
deserts separated India, China, Indo-China, and 
Japan from the rest of Asia. India, indeed, did not 
remain entirely isolated in antiquity, for the north¬ 
western part of the country was conquered first by 
the Persians and then by the Greeks. Even after the 
end of foreign rule, India continued to be of impor¬ 
tance through its commerce in precious stones, ivory, 
fine woods, and cotton stuffs. China during ancient 
times also had some foreign trade and came to be 
known as the Silk Land (Serica), from the silken 
goods which found their way into the markets of 
western Asia and Europe. But it was not until the 
nineteenth century of our era that the Far East 
emerged from age-long seclusion and began to take a 

really active part in world affairs. 

The boundaries of the Near East are the Black 
and Caspian seas on the north, the Red Sea, Persian 
Gulf, and Indian Ocean on the south, the Indus River 
on the east, and the Mediterranean and the Nile on 
the west This part of Asia consists substantially of 
three vegetation belts, which are continued on a wider 


27 


28 


The Ancient Orient 


scale across the entire continent. First come the for¬ 
ests in the mountainous districts of Asia Minor, 
Armenia, and Iran (Persia). Next succeed the steppe 
or grass lands, including a large part of the plateaus 
of Asia Minor, Iran, and Arabia. Finally, as the 
rainfall diminishes, the steppes become more and 
more arid and pass into semi-deserts and deserts, such 
as those of Syria and inner Arabia. The forest belt 
nourished a migratory, hunting folk. The steppe 
belt formed the home of nomadic, pastoral tribes. 
As for the desert belt, that was habitable only in 
oases. Nowhere could men settle down and adopt 
an agricultural life except where they were assured 
of a constant water supply and enduring sunlight. 
They found this assurance in the valleys of the Tigris- 
Euphrates^and the Nile. 

Two famous rivers rise in the mountains of Ar¬ 
menia—the Tigris and the Euphrates. Flowing 
southward, they approach each other to form a com¬ 
mon valley, proceed in parallel channels for the 
greater part of their course, and only unite shortly 
befoie ieaching the Persian Gulf. In antiquity each 
river had a separate mouth. The soil which the 
Tigris and Euphrates bring down every year fills up 
the I ersian Gulf at the rate of about three miles a 
century. Hence their delta was much less extensive 
five or six thousand years ago than it is to-day. 

This delta forms a plain anciently about one hun¬ 
dred and seventy miles long and rarely more than 
forty miles wide. In the Old Testament it is called 
the “land of Shinar” ( Genesis, xi, 2). We know it 
better as Babylonia, after Babylon, which became its 
leading city and capital. 

The plain of Babylonia was once wonderfully fer- 


The Lands of the Near East 


29 


tile. The alluvial soil, when properly irrigated, 
yielded abundant harvests of wheat, barley, and mil¬ 
let. The fruit of the date palm provided a nutritious 
food. Although there was no stone, clay was every¬ 
where. Molded into brick and afterwards dried in 
the sun, the clay became adobe, the cheapest build¬ 
ing material imaginable. Nature, indeed, has done 
much for Babylonia. We can understand, therefore, 
why from prehistoric times people have been attract¬ 
ed to this region, and why it is here that we find a 
seat of early civilization. 

The Nile is the longest of the great African rivers. 
The White Nile rises in the Nyanza lakes, flows due 
north, and receives the waters of the Blue Nile near 
the modern town of Khartum. From this point the 
course of the river is broken by a series fjy p mr ^y 
rapids, misname^U-G-aiaracts, which can be shot by 
boUTs: ' TlTefcataracts cease near the island of Philae, 
and Upper Egypt begins. It is a valley about five 
hundred miles long and about thirty miles wide. 
The strip of cultivable soil on each side of the river 
averages, however, only eight miles in width. Not 
far from modern Cairo the hills inclosing the valley 
fall away, the Nile divides into numerous branches, 
and the delta of Lower Egypt begins. The sluggish 
stream passes through a region of mingled swamp 
and plain, and at length by three principal mouths 
empties into the Mediterranean. 

Egypt owes her existence to the Nile. All Lower 
Egypt is a creation of the river by the gradual accu¬ 
mulation of sediment at its mouths. Upper Egypt has 
been dug out of the desert sand and underlying rock 
by a process of erosion centuries long. The Nile once 
filled all the space between the hills that line its sides. 



30 


The Ancient Orient 


Now it flows through a thick layer of mud which has 
been deposited by the yearly inundation. 

In Egypt, as in Babylonia, every condition made 
it easy for people to live and thrive. The soil of 
Egypt, perhaps the most fertile in the world, pro¬ 
duced after irrigation three crops of grain, flax, and 
vegetables a year. The wonderful date palm was a 
native tree. The clay of the valley and easily worked 
stone from the near-by mountains provided building 
materials. The hot, dry climate enabled the inhabi¬ 
tants to get along with little shelter and clothing. 
The Nile provided them with a natural highway for 
domestic trade. Such favoring circumstances al¬ 
lowed the Egyptians to increase in numbers and to 
gather in populous communities. At a time when 
their neighbors, even the Babylonians, were still in 
the darkness of the prehistoric age, the Egyptians 
had entered the light of history. 

The Peoples of the Near East 

The Nile Valley appears to have been inhabited 
at a remote period by Neolithic men in the barbarian 
stage of culture. They made beautiful implements 
of polished flint, fashioned pottery, built in brick and 
stone, sailed boats on the Nile, introduced such use¬ 
ful animals as the buffalo, ass, and goat, and tilled the 
soil. In time, they began to smelt copper and to 
wiite by means of phonetic signs. Both metallurgy 
and sound writing arose in Egypt earlier than any¬ 
where else in the world. Like other barbarous peo¬ 
ples, the Neolithic Egyptians must have lived at first 
in separate tribes, under the rule of chiefs. As civ¬ 
ilization advanced, the tribal organization gave way 
to city-states, that is, to small, independent communi- 


The Peoples of the Near East 


31 


ties, each one centering about a town or a city. The 
city-states by 4000 B. c. had coalesced into two king¬ 
doms, one in the Delta, the other in Upper Egypt. 
This progress took place before the dawn of history. 

The Egyptians commenced keeping written records 
about 34 °° C. The date coincides pretty closely 
with that of the union of Upper Egypt and Lower 
Egypt into a national state, under a ruler named 
Menes. He was thus the founder of that long line of 
kings, or “Pharaohs” (as they are called in the 
Bible), who for nearly three thousand years held 
sway over Egypt. The Pharaohs ruled at first from 
Memphis, near the head of the Delta, but later 
Thebes in Upper Egypt became the Egyptian 
capital. 

A study of the map shows that Egypt occupies an 
isolated situation, being protected by deserts on each 
side, by the Mediterranean on the north, and by the 
cataracts of the Nile (impeding navigation) on the 
south. Thus sheltered from the inroads of foreign 
peoples, the Egyptians enjoyed many centuries of 
quiet and peaceful progress. About 1800 B. C v how¬ 
ever, they came for a time under the sway of barbar¬ 
ous Semitic tribes, called Hyksos, who entered Egypt 
through the isthmus of Suez. After the expulsion of 
the intruders, the Egyptians themselves began a 
career of conquest. The Pharaohs raised powerful 
armies, invaded Palestine, Phoenicia, and Syria, and 
extended their rule as far as the middle Euphrates. 
Even the islands of Cyprus and Crete seem to have 
become dependencies of Egypt. The conquered terri¬ 
tories paid a heavy tribute of the precious metals and 
merchandise, while the forced labor of thousands of 
war captives enabled Rameses II (about 1292-1225 


32 


The Ancient Orient 


B. c.) and other Pharaohs to erect great monuments in 
every part of their realm. Gradually, however, 
Egypt declined in warlike energy; her Asiatic pos¬ 
sessions fell away; and the country itself in the sixth 
century B. c. became a part of the Persian Empire. 
The Egyptians remained under foreign masters from 
this time until our own day. 

The valley of the Tigris-Euphrates, unlike that of 
the Nlie, was not isolated. It opened on extensive 
mountain and steppe regions, the home of hunting or 
of pastoral peoples. Their inroads and migrations 
into the fertile plain of the two rivers formed a 
constant feature of Babylonian history. The earliest 
inhabitants of the “land of Shinar,'’ about w 7 hom we 
know anything, were the Sumerians. They entered 
the country through the passes of the eastern or north¬ 
ern mountains, about four thousand years before 
Christ, gradually settled down to an agricultural life, 
and formed a number of independent city-states, each 
with its king and its patron god. After the Sumerians 
came Semitic-speaking peoples from northern 
Arabia. Under a leader named Sargon (about 2800 
B. c. ) the Semites subdued the Sumerians and began 
to adopt their civilization. Sargon united all the 
Sumenan city-states. He also carried his victorious 
arms as fai west as Syria and ruled over u the coun¬ 
tries of the sea of the setting sun (the IVlediterra- 
nean). Sargon was, in fact, the first of the world 
conquerors. Many centuries later another great 
Semitic ruler, Hammurabi (about 2100 B. c.), made 
his native city of Babylon, at first an obscure and 
unimportant place, the capital of what may hence¬ 
forth be called the Babylonian Kingdom. 

The region between the Mediterranean and the 


33 


Races, Peoples, and Languages 

Arabian Desert contained in antiquity three small 
countries: Syria, Phoenicia, and Palestine. Their 
situation made them the great highway of the Near 
Bast, and through them ran the caravan routes con¬ 
necting the Nile with the Euphrates. The inhabi¬ 
tants spoke Semitic languages and probably came 
from northern Arabia. They are known as Aramaeans 
or Syrians, Phoenicians, and Hebrews. None of these 
peoples ever played a leading part in Oriental history, 
but each made important contributions to Oriental 
civilization. The Aramaeans were keen business men, 
who bought and sold throughout western Asia. The 
language of the Aramaeans in this way became widely 
diffused and eventually displaced Hebrew as the 
ordinary speech in Palestine. Some parts of the Old 
Testament are written in Aramaic. The chief center 
of the Aramaeans was Damascus, one of the oldest 
cities in the world and still a thriving place. 

The Phoenicians occupied a narrow stretch of coast, 
about one hundred and twenty miles in length and 
seldom more than twelve miles in width, between the 
Lebanon Mountains and the sea. This tiny land could 
not support a large population by farming, so the 
Phoenicians became a nation of sailors. They found 
in the cedars of Lebanon a soft, white wood for ship¬ 
building, and in the Egyptian vessels which had been 
entering their harbors for centuries a model for their 
own craft. The great Phoenician cities of Sidon and 
Tyre long maintained an extensive commerce 
throughout the Mediterranean. 

The Hebrews lived south of the Aramaeans and 
the Phoenicians. Hebrew history begins with the 
immigration of twelve tribes (called Israelites) into 
Palestine. Here they gave up the life of wandering 


34 


The Ancient Orient 


shepherds and became farmers and townsmen. Their 
twelve tribes at first formed only a loose and weak 
confederacy. The sole authority was that held by 
valiant chieftains and law-givers, such as Samson, 
Gideon, and Samuel, who served as judges between 
the people and often led them against their foes. 

Toward the close of the eleventh century B. C. the 
Hebrew tribes united into one kingdom, under a 
ruler named Saul. His reign was filled with constant 
struggles against the warlike Philistines, who occu¬ 
pied the southwestern coast of Palestine. David, 
Saul s successor, overthrew the Philistine power. For 
a capital city David selected the ancient fortress of 
Jerusalem, which henceforth became for the Hebrews 
the center of their national life. The reign of 
David’s son, Solomon (about 955-925 B. C.), formed 
the most splendid period in Hebrew history. Solo¬ 
mon’s authority reached from the peninsula of Sinai 
northward to the Lebanon Mountains and the 
Euphrates. He married an Egyptian princess, a * 
daughter of the reigning Pharaoh. He joined with 
Hiram, king of Tyre, in trading expeditions on the 
Red Sea and Indian Ocean. 1 he same monarch sup¬ 
plied him with skilled Phoenician workmen, who 
built at Jerusalem a splendid temple for the worship 
of Jehovah. 

Aftei Solomon s death the ten northern tribes set 
up an independent kingdom of Israel, with its capital 
at Samaria. The two southern tribes, Judah and 
Benjamin, formed the kingdom of Judea and 
remained faithful to the successors of Solomon. 
These small states led a troubled existence for several 
centuries. The Assyrians finally conquered Israel, 



The Peoples of the Near East 


35 


and the Babylonians, Judea. Both states in the end 
were added to the Persian Empire. 

North of Babylonia and on each side of the Tigris 
River lay Assyria. The inhabitants spoke a Semitic 
language akin to Babylonian. Their chief city was 
at first Assur (whence the name Assyria), and after¬ 
ward the larger and more splendid Nineveh. They 



Solomon's Kingdom 

The supposed route of the Hebrew Exodus from Egypt through the peninsula of 
Sinai to the border of Palestine is traced on the map. 

were a rough, hardy people, devoted to hunting and 
warlike exercises. Having adopted the horse and 
military chariot, and later iron weapons, the Assyri¬ 
ans began a series of sweeping conquests. Their power 
culminated during the eighth and seventh centuries 



































3^ 


The Ancient Orient 


before Christ. The kings who then reigned at Nine¬ 
veh created a dominion reaching from the neighbor¬ 
hood of the Black and Caspian seas to the Persian 
Gulf, the Red Sea, and the Nile. One of the greatest 
of these Assyrian monarchs was Sennacherib (705- 
681 B.c. ), whose name is familiar from the references 
to him in the Old Testament. 

Force built up the Assyrian state and only force 
could hold it together. When, therefore, it declined 
in strength, the subject countries made ready to strike 
a blow for freedom. The storm broke in 606 B. C. In 
that yeai the king of Babylon and the king of the 
Medes and Persians moved upon Nineveh, captured 
the city, and utterly destroyed it. 

The victors now divided the spoils. Media secured 
most of Assyria proper, together with the long stretch 
of mountain country extending from the Persian Gulf 
to Asia Minor. Babylonia obtained the western part 
of the Assyrian domains, all the way to the Mediter¬ 
ranean. Under Nebuchadnezzar (604-561 B. c.), 
Babylonia again became a great power in the Orient! 
It was Nebuchadnezzar who brought the kingdom 
of Judea to an end, captured Jerusalem, burned Solo¬ 
mon s Temple, and carried away many Hebrews into 

captivity. All this story is related in the Old Testa¬ 
ment. 

Not much earlier than the break-up of Assyria, we 
find a new^ and vigorous people pressing into western 
Asia. 1 hey were the Persians, near kinsmen of the 
Medes, and like them of Indo-European speech. The 
able ruler whom history knows as Cyrus the Great 
(SS 3 ~S 2 9 B.c.) united the Persians and the Medes 
under his sway and then conquered the kingdom of 
Lydia in Asia Minor. He also subdued Babylonia. 


20 ° 


80° 


40° 


50° 


60° 


70° 


80° 


n 


l «6_ 




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eO. 




40 








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SE\ A * 


. A 


THE ANCIENT ORIENT 

| Boundaries of the Assyrian Empire 
1 Boundaries of the Persian Empire 

-Land routes 

-Water routes 

Scale of Miles 
0 100 200 300 


- 40 


400 


500 






m 






L i 


4^ 

A ^faucra' 


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S* a Si's Of Of Tw /^~ 

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yoppa-y^ramaria \ AgadeiAv \?P^MLv T ' x 4 

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Gaza n . / ' i \ \Babylon\.°xW \» ' . 

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THE M.-N.WORKS 


10 


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Longitude East from Greenwich 60° 


70' 















































































t'\* * 


37 


The Peoples of the Near East 

The Hebrew exiles there were now allowed to return 
to their native land. His son, Cambyses, annexed 
Egypt. The successor of Cambyses, Darius the Great 
( 1 -485 B - c -)> added northwestern India to the Per¬ 
sian dominions, together with some territory in 
Europe. Not without reason could Darius describe 
himself in an inscription as “the great king, king of 
kings, king of countries, king of all men.” 

The Persian Empire extended over an enormous 
area. Its eastern and western frontiers were nearly 
three thousand miles apart, or considerably more than 
the distance between New York and San Francisco. 
Its northern and southern boundaries were almost as 
remote. With the exception of Arabia, which the 
Persians never attempted to conquer, the Near East 
from the Indus to the Danube and the Nile yielded 
allegiance to the Great King. 

It was the work of Darius to establish a stable 
government, which should preserve what the sword 
had won. The problem was difficult, for t im-B^sians 
had conquered many peoples unlike in race, languag e, 
customs, and religion . Darius did nottry to weld 
, them into uni ty. As long as his subjects. mL d tribut e 
rnished soldiers, they were allowed to mana ge 
ttheir affairs wit h little interference. The entire em- 

V 2 LS divided i nto abou t 
twenty provinces, ea ch with govern ors to collect taxes 
and command the provincial armies^ D arius also 
provided special age n< ^ wh ng e Hnsin^cs travel 

t hroughout the emp ire and jnvestigate the conrjTrrTrr 
thejroy^^ means of holding his 

dominions together. Darius laid outTiTH 4 t»py: rolflj s 
HAiljJi c dispatch of troops and su pplies The Roval 
Road from Susa, the Persian capital, to Sardis in 


















































38 


The Ancient Orient 


^Lydia was about sixteen hundred miles long: but go v¬ 
ernment couriers, using relays of fresh horses, coul d 
.cover th e dist ance within a week. It is interestin g 
-to note that the present railroad from Constantinople 
* 4 cUlagdad in large part parallels this ancient hig h- 
-way— 

Oriental history has now been traced from its be¬ 
ginnings to about 500 B. C. We have seen how the 
earliest civilized societies appeared in the valleys of 
the Nile and the Tigris-Euphrates; how empire 
building started; and how at length nearly all the 
Near East came together in the widespread Persian 
Empire. This work of unification was accomplished 
only at a fearful cost. The records of Egypt, Baby¬ 
lonia, Assyria, and Persia, not to speak of minor 
countiies, are a terrible story of towns and cities given 
to the flames, of the devastation of fertile regions, of 
the slaughter of men, women, and children, of the 
enslavement of entire populations. Mankind by this 
time had passed from the petty robbery, murder, and 
border feuds characteristic of savagery and barbarism 
to organized warfare, in which state was ranged 
against state and nation against nation. Peace, indeed, 
formed the rare exception in the ancient Orient. 
Consequently, there could be no such thing as inter¬ 
national law regulating the relations of one commu¬ 
nity to another and no conception of international 
cooperation for human welfare. Each community 
looked out for itself; each one, if it could, subdued 
its neighbors and imposed its rule upon them. Never¬ 
theless, Oriental peoples made much progress in 
social and economic conditions, in law and morality, 
in religion, literature, art, science, and other fields 
of activity during the first thirty centuries of history. 
















Social Conditions 

Social Conditions 


39 


Nothing like democracy existed in the ancient 
Orient. The common people never shared in the gov- 
ernment as voters and lawmakers 5 they knew only 
monarchical rule. The king, especially in Egypt, was 
considered to be the earthly representative of the 
gods. Even in a Pharaoh’s lifetime temples were 
erected to him and offerings were made to his sacred 
majesty. The belief in the king’s divinity led natu¬ 
rally to the conclusion that he deserved the unques¬ 
tioning obedience of his subjects. The king was there¬ 
fore an autocrat, exercising absolute, irresponsible 
authority. He had many duties. He was judge, com¬ 
mander, and high priest, all in one. In time of War, 
he led his troops and faced the perils of the battle¬ 
field. During intervals of peace, he was occupied 
with a constant round of sacrifices, prayers, and pro¬ 
cessions, which could not be omitted without exciting 
the anger of the gods. To his courtiers he gave fre¬ 
quent audience, hearing complaints, settling disputes, 
and issuing commands. A conscientious monarch, 
such as Hammurabi, who describes himself as “a 
real father to his people,” must have been a very busy 
man. 

Oriental monarchs always maintained luxurious 
courts. The splendor of Rameses II, of Solomon, of 
Sennacherib, of Nebuchadnezzar, dazzled their con¬ 
temporaries. Royal magnificence reached its height 
with the Great King of Persia. He lived far removed 
from the common eye in the recesses of a lordly pal¬ 
ace. When he gave audience to his nobles, he sat 
on a gold and ivory throne. When he traveled, even 
on military expeditions, he carried with him costly 


40 


The Ancient Orient 


furniture, gold and silver dishes, and gorgeous robes. 
About him were hundreds of servants, bodyguards, 
and officials. All who approached his person pros¬ 
trated themselves in the dust. “Whatsoever he com- 
mandeth them, they do. If he bid them make war, 
the one against the other, they do it; if he send them 
out against his enemies they go, and break down 
mountains, walls, and towers. They slay and are 
slain, and transgress not the king’s commandment” 
(I Esdras, iv, 3-5). 

The aristocratic or noble class included large 
landowners, rich merchants and bankers, and espe¬ 
cially high government officials. These persons were 
often very powerful. If the king failed to keep on 
good terms with them, they might at any time rise 
in revolt and perhaps dethrone him. Oriental history 
relates many insurrections against the reigning 
monarch. 

The priestly class also exerted much influence. 
Priests conducted the temple worship and acted as 
intermediaries between men and the gods. They were 
likewise scholars, who collected the old traditions and 
legends and set them down in writing; scientists, who 
investigated Nature’s secrets; and teachers in the 
schools connected with the temples. The priesthoods 
accumulated much property, particularly in Egypt, 
where about a third of all the tillable land came 
under their control. 

The middle class included chiefly shopkeepers and 
professional men such as physicians, notaries, and 
scribes. Though regarded as inferiors, still there was 
a chance for them to rise in the world. If they be¬ 
came rich, they might hope to enter the priesthood 
or even the exalted ranks of the nobility. 


Economic Conditions 


4 1 


No such hope encouraged the day laborer. His lot 
was poverty and unending toil. The artisan received 
a wage scarcely sufficient to keep him and his family 
from starvation, while the peasant, after paying 
excessive rents and taxes on his farm, had left only a 
bare subsistence. 

The slaves occupied the base of the social pyramid. 
Every Oriental people possessed them. At first, they 
Were prisoners of war, who, instead of being slaugh¬ 
tered, were forced to labor for their masters. Oriental 
rulers undertook military expeditions for the express 
purpose of gathering slaves—“like the sand,” says 
an ancient writer. Persons unable to pay their debts 
often lost their freedom. Criminals, also, were some¬ 
times compelled to enter into servitude. The treat¬ 
ment of slaves depended on the character of their 
master. A cruel and overbearing master might make 
life a burden for them. Slaves had plenty to do. They 
repaired dikes, dug irrigation ditches, erected temples 
and palaces, labored in the mines, served as oarsmen 
in ships, and engaged in many household activities. 
In Babylonia and Assyria, where the servile class was 
more numerous than in Egypt, the whole structure of 
society rested on the backs of slaves. 

Economic Conditions 

Such fruitful, well-watered valleys as those of the 
Nile and the Euphrates encouraged agricultural life. 
Wheat, barley, and millet were first domesticated 
either in Egypt or in Babylonia. There is good rea¬ 
son, indeed, for believing that these most important 
cereals, together with domesticated cattle, were intro¬ 
duced into Neolithic Europe from the Near East. 
All the methods of farming are pictured for us on 



42 


The Ancient Orient 


Egyptian monuments. We mark the peasant as he 
breaks up the earth with a hoe or plows a shallow 
furrow with a sharp-pointed stick. We see the sheep 
being driven across sown fields to trample the seed 
into the moist soil. We watch the patient laborers 
as with sickles they gather in the harvest and then 
with heavy bails separate the chaff from the grain. 
Although their methods were clumsy, ancient farmers 
raised immense crops. The soil of Egypt and Baby¬ 
lonia not only supported a dense population, but also 
supplied food for neighboring countries. These two 
regions were the granaries of the Near East. 

Blacksmiths, carpenters, stonecutters, Weavers, pot¬ 
ters, glass-blowers, and workers in ivory, silver, and 
gold were found in every Oriental city. The creations 
of these ancient craftsmen often exhibit remarkable 
skill. Egyptian linens were so wonderfully fine and 
transparent as to merit the name of u woven air.” 
Egyptian glass, with its lines of different hues, was 
much prized. Babylonian tapestries, carpets, and 
rugs enjoyed a high reputation for beauty of design 
and coloring. Some of the industrial arts thus prac¬ 
ticed thousands of years ago have been revived only 
in modern times. 

The development of arts and crafts made it neces¬ 
sary for merchants to collect manufactured products 
where they could be readily bought and sold. The 
cities of Babylonia, in particular, became thriving 
markets. Partnerships between tradesmen were not 
uncommon. We even learn of commercial companies 
not so very unlike our present corporations. Business 
life in Babylonia wore, indeed, quite a modern look. 

Metallic money first circulated in the form of rings 
and bars. The Egyptians had small pieces of gold— 


Commerce and Commercial Routes 


43 


“cow golcT—each of which was simply the value of 
a full-grown cow. 11 was necessary to weigh the metal 
whenever a purchase took place. A common picture 
on the Egyptian monuments is that of the weigher 
with his balance and scales. Then the practice arose 
■ of stamping each piece of money with its true value 
and weight. The next step was coinage proper, where 
the government guarantees, not only the weight, but 
also the genuineness of the metal. The honor of 
inventing coinage belongs to the Lydians of Asia 
Minor, whose country was well supplied with the 
precious metals. The kings of Lydia began to coin 
money as early as the eighth century B. c. The Greek 
neighbors of Lydia quickly adopted the art of coin¬ 
age and so introduced it into Europe. 

The use of money as a medium of exchange led 
naturally to a system of banking. One great banking 
house, established at Babylon before the time of Sen¬ 
nacherib, carried on operations for several centuries. 
Hundreds of legal documents belonging to this firm 
have been discovered in the huge earthenware jars 
which served as safes. The temples in Babylonia also 
received money on deposit and loaned it out again, 
as do our modern banks. Babylonian business usages 
and credit devices spread through Asia Minor to 
Greece and thence into other European countries. 

Commerce and Commercial Routes 

Commerce, which has always been a means of 
enabling different peoples to know and influence one 
another, was in early times exposed to many dangers. 
Wild tribes and bands of robbers infested the roads 
and obliged the traveler to be ever on guard against 
their attacks. Travel by water had also its drawbacks. 


44 


The Ancient Orient 


Boats were small and easily swamped in rough 
weather. With a single sail and few oarsmen, prog¬ 
ress was very slow. Without compass or chart, the 
navigator seldom ventured into the open sea. He 
hugged the coast as closely as possible, keeping always 
a sharp eye for pirates who might seize his vessel and 
take him into slavery. In spite of all these risks, the 
profits of foreign trade were so great that much inter¬ 
course existed between Oriental lands. 

The Egyptians, pioneers in so many fields of human 
activity, are believed to have made the first seagoing 
ships. As early as the thirtieth century B. C v they 
began to venture out into the eastern Mediterranean 
and to carry on a thriving trade with both Cyprus and 
Crete, which lay almost opposite the mouths of the 
Nile. The ships of the Pharaohs also sailed up and 
down the entire length of the Red Sea. 

The cities of the Tigris-Euphrates Valley were ad¬ 
mirably situated for commerce, both by sea and land. 
The shortest way by water from India skirted the 
southern coast of Iran and, passing up the Persian 
Gulf, gained the valley of the two rivers. Even more 
important were the overland roads for caravan trade 
from India and China. They converged at Babylon 
and Nineveh and then radiated westward to Asia 
Minor, Syria, Phoenicia, Palestine, and Egypt. All 
these routes have been arteries of commerce from pre¬ 
historic times. Many of them are in use even to-day. 

A Semitic people, the Phoenicians, were the com¬ 
mon carriers of the Mediterranean after about 1000 
B. c. Phoenician water routes soon extended to 
Cyprus, a short distance away, then to Crete, then to 
the islands of the iEgean, and, at least occasionally, to 
the coasts of the Black Sea. When the Phoenicians 












































Commerce and Commercial Routes 45 

were finally driven from these regions by the rising 
power of the Greek states, they sailed farther west¬ 
ward and established trading posts in Sicily, Sardinia, 
North Africa, and Spain. At length they passed 
through the strait of Gibraltar into the stormy Atlan¬ 
tic and visited the shores of western Europe and 
Africa. 

The Phoenicians obtained a great variety of prod¬ 
ucts as a result of their commercial voyages. The 
mines of Spain yielded iron, tin, lead, and silver. 
Tin, which was especially valuable because of its use 
in making bronze, seems also to have been brought 
from southwestern Britain (Cornwall), where mines 
of this metal are still productive. From Africa came 
ivory, ostrich feathers, and gold; from Arabia, which 
the Phoenicians also visited, came incense, perfumes, 
and costly spices. These commodities found a ready 
sale throughout the Near East. Still other products 
were imported directly into Phoenicia to provide raw 
materials for her flourishing manufactures. The fine 
carpets and glassware, the artistic works in silver and 
bronze, and the beautiful purple cloths produced in 
Phoenician factories were exported to every part of 
the known world. 

The Phoenicians were the boldest sailors of 
antiquity. Some of their long voyages are still on 
record. We learn from the Old Testament that they 
made cruises on the Red Sea and Indian Ocean and 
brought the gold of Ophir, “four hundred and twenty 
talents,” to Solomon. There is even a story of certain 
Phoenicians who, by direction of an Egyptian king, 
explored the eastern coast of Africa, rounded the 
Cape of Good Hope, and after three years 1 absence 
returned to Egypt through the strait of Gibraltar. A 


46 


The Ancient Orient 


much more probable narrative is that of the voyage 
of Hanno, a Carthaginian admiral. We still possess 
a Greek translation of his interesting log book. It 
describes an expedition made about 500 B. C. along the 
western coast of Africa. The explorers seem to have 
sailed as far as the Gulf of Guinea. Nearly two 
thousand years elapsed before Portuguese navigators 
undertook a similar voyage to the Dark Continent. 

Wherever the Phoenicians went, they established 
settlements. Most of these were merely trading posts, 
which contained warehouses for the storage of goods. 
Here the shy natives came to barter their raw 
materials for the finished products—cloths, tools, 
weapons, wine, and oil—which the strangers from 
the east had brought with them. Phoenician settle¬ 
ments sometimes grew into large and flourishing 
cities. Gades in southern Spain, which was the most 
distant of their colonies, survives to this day as Cadiz, 
one of the very oldest cities in Europe. Carthage, 
founded in North Africa by colonists from Tyre, be¬ 
came the commercial mistress of the western Mediter¬ 
ranean. Carthaginian history, as we shall learn, has 
many points of contact with that of the Greeks and 
Romans. 


Law and Morality 

Human activities in the Near East seem to have 
gone on in orderly fashion much of the time. As far 
as we can tell, life was fairly safe, property was rea¬ 
sonably secure, and people were protected in their 
occupations. Egypt, we know, had courts of justice, 
law books (unfortunately lost), and definite rules 
relating to contracts, loans, leases, mortgages, partner¬ 
ships, marriage, and the family. The position of 




Law and Morality 


47 


woman was remarkably high: she had full rights of 
ownership and inheritance and she could engage in 
business on her own account. Though polygamy 
existed, chiefly among the upper classes, the wife was 
her husband’s companion and not merely his domes¬ 
tic servant. The reverence due from children to 
father and mother was constantly insisted upon, and 
filial piety for the Egyptians ranked among the high¬ 
est virtues. 

The most enlightening notice of Egyptian moral 
standards is found in a very ancient work known as 
the Book of the Dead . One of the chapters describes 
the judgment of the soul in the other world. If the 
soul was to enjoy a blissful immortality, it must be 
able to recite truthfully before its judges a so-called 
Negative Confession. These are some of the declara¬ 
tions: “I did not steal;” “I did not murder;” “I did 
not lie;” “I did not kill any sacred animals;” “I did 
not damage any cultivated land;” “I did not do any 
witchcraft;” “I did not blaspheme a god;” “I did not 
make false accusations;” “I did not revile my father;” 
“I did not cause a slave to be ill-treated by his mas¬ 
ter ;” “I did not make any one weep.” After pleading 
innocence of all the forty-two sins condemned by 
Egyptian ethics, the soul added, “Grant that he may 
come unto you ... he that hath given bread to 
the hungry and drink to the thirsty, and that hath 
clothed the naked with garments.” Some of the 
clauses of the Negative Confession correspond to 
some of the Ten Commandments, while the affirma¬ 
tive statement at the end makes a close approach to 
Christian morality. 

The Babylonians were a very legal-minded people. 
When a man sold his wheat, bought a slave, married 


4 8 


The Ancient Orient 


a wife, or made a will, the transaction was duly noted 
on a contract tablet, which was then filed away in the 
public archives. Instead of inscribing his name, a 
Babylonian stamped his seal on the soft clay of the 
tablet. Every one who owned property had to have a 
seal. A contract tablet was protected from deface¬ 
ment by being placed in a hollow clay case, or 
envelope. 

A recent discovery has provided us with almost the 
complete text of the laws which Hammurabi, the 
Babylonian king, ordered engraved on stone monu¬ 
ments and set up in the chief cities of his realm. 
Hammurabi’s code shows, in general, a keen sense 
of justice. A man who tries to bribe a witness or a 
judge is to be severely punished. A farmer who is 
careless with his dikes and allows the water to run 
through and flood his neighbor’s land must restore the 
value of the grain he has damaged. The owner of a 
vicious ox which has gored a man must pay a heavy 
fine, provided he knew the disposition of the animal 
and had not blunted its horns. On the other hand, the 
code contains some rude features, especially its reli¬ 
ance upon retaliation —“eye for eye, tooth for 
tooth”— as the punishment of injuries. For instance, 
a son who struck his father was to have his hands cut 
off. The natuie of the punishment depended, more¬ 
over, on the rank of the aggrieved party. A person 
who had caused the loss of a “gentleman’s” eye was 
to have his own plucked out; but if the injury was 
done to a poor man, the culprit had only to pay a 
fine. Hammurabi’s code thus presents a vivid picture 
of Babylonian society twenty-one centuries before 
Christ. 

The laws which we find in the earlier part of the 



Religion 


49 


Old Testament were ascribed by the Hebrews to 
Moses. The Bible states that he had received them 
from Jehovah on Mount Sinai. These laws covered 
a wide range of subjects. They fixed all religious 
ceremonies, required the observance every seventh 
day of the Sabbath, gave numerous and complicated 
rules for sacrifices, and even indicated what foods 
must be avoided as “unclean.” No other ancient 
people possessed so elaborate a legal system. The 
Jews, throughout the world, still follow its precepts. 
And modern Christendom still recites the Ten Com¬ 
mandments, the noblest summary of the rules of right 
living that has come down to us from Oriental 
antiquity. 

Religion 

Oriental ideas of religion, even more than of law 
and morality, were the gradual outgrowth of beliefs 
which arose in prehistoric times. Everywhere nature 
worship prevailed. The vault of heaven, earth and 
ocean, and sun, moon, and stars were all regarded as 
themselves divine or as the abode of divinities. The 
sun formed an object of particular adoration. We 
find a sun god, under different names, throughout the 

Orient. 

The Egyptians, very conservative in religious mat¬ 
ters, always retained the animal worship of their bar¬ 
barous ancestors. Some gods were represented on 
monuments in partly animal form, one having a 
baboon’s head, another the head of a lioness, another 
that of a cat. Such animals as the jackal, bull, ram, 
hawk, and crocodile also received the utmost rever¬ 
ence, less for themselves, however, than as symbols 
of different gods. 


The Ancient Orient 


So 


In Babylonia and Assyria a belief in the existence 
of evil spirits formed a prominent feature of the 
religion. People supposed themselves to be constantly 
surrounded by a host of demons, who caused insanity, 
sickness, accidents, and death—all human ills. 

To cope with these spiritual enemies the Babylo¬ 
nian used magic. He put up an image of a protecting 
god at the entrance of his home and wore charms upon 
his person. If he fell ill, he summoned a magician to 
recite an incantation which would drive out the 
demon inside him. 

The Babylonians had many ways of predicting the 
future. Soothsayers divined from dreams and from 
the casting of lots. Omens of prosperity or misfor¬ 
tune were also drawn from the appearance of the 
entiails of animals slain in sacrifice. Tor this purpose 
a sheep’s liver was commonly used. Divination by 
the liver was studied for centuries in the temple 
schools of Babylonia. The practice afterwards spread 
to the Greeks and Romans. 

Astrology received much attention in Babylonia. 
The five planets then recognized, as well as comets 
and eclipses, were thought to exercise an influence 
for good 01 evil on the life of man. Babylonian 
astrology passed to western lands and became popular 
in much of Europe. When we name the days Satur¬ 
day, Sunday, and Monday, we are unconscious 
astrologers, for in old belief the first day belonged 
to the planet Saturn, the second to the sun, and the 
third to the moon. People who try to read their fate 

in the stars are really practicing an art of Babylonian 
origin. . 

In the midst of so many nature deities, sacred ani¬ 
mals, and evil spirits, it was indeed remarkable that 


Religion 


5i 


the belief in one god should ever have arisen. Never¬ 
theless, some Egyptian thinkers reached the idea of 
a single supreme divinity. One of the Pharaohs, 
Amenhotep IV (about 1375-1358 B. c.), who saw in 
the sun the source of all life on the earth, ordered his 
subjects to worship that luminary alone. The names 
of other gods were erased from the monuments, their 
images destroyed, their temples closed, and their 
priests expelled. No such lofty faith had ever 
appeared before, but it was too abstract and imper¬ 
sonal to win popular favor. After the king’s death, 
the old deities were restored to honor. 

The Medes and Persians accepted the religious 
teachings of Zoroaster, a great prophet whose date 
is variously placed between 1000 and 700 B. c. Ac¬ 
cording to Zoroaster, Ahuramazda, the heaven-deity, 
is the maker and upholder of the universe. He is a 
god of light and order, of truth and purity. Against 
him stands Ahriman, the personification of darkness 
and disorder. These rival powers are engaged in a 
ceaseless struggle. Man, by doing right and avoiding 
wrong, by loving truth and hating falsehood, can help 
make Good triumph over Evil. In the end Ahura¬ 
mazda will overcome Ahriman and will reign 
supreme over a righteous world. Zoroastrianism was 
the only monotheistic religion developed by an Indo- 
European people. It still survives in some parts of 
Persia, though that country is now chiefly Moham¬ 
medan, and also among the Parsees (Persians) of 
Bombay Presidency, India. 

The Hebrews, a Semitic people, also developed a 
monotheistic religion. The Old Testament shows 
how it came about. Jehovah was at first regarded by 
the Hebrews as simply their own national deity; they 


5 2 The Ancient Orient 

I 

did not deny the existence of the deities of other 
nations, though they refused to worship them. The 
prophets from the eighth century onwards, began to 
transform this narrow, limited conception. For them, 
Jehovah was the God of the whole earth, the Father 
of all mankind. After the Hebrews returned to Pales¬ 
tine from captivity in Babylon, the sublime faith of 
the prophets gradually spread through the entire 
nation, culminating in the doctrine of Jesus that God 
is a Spirit and that they who worship him must wor¬ 
ship him in spirit and in truth. The Christian doc¬ 
trine of God is thus directly an outgrowth of Hebrew 
monotheism. 

The Egyptians, as well as all other ancient peoples, 
believed that man has a soul which survives the death 
of the body. They thought it essential, however, to 
preserve the body from destruction, so that it might 
remain to the end of time a home for the soul. Hence 
a lose the piactice of embalming. 1 he embalmed 
body (mummy) was then placed in the grave, which 
the Egyptians called an “eternal dwelling.” Later 
Egyptian thought represented the future as a place 
of rewards and punishments, where, as we have just 
learned, the soul underwent the ordeal of a last 
judgment. As a man lived in this life, so would be 
his lot in the next. The Babylonians supposed that 
after death the souls of all men, good and bad alike, 
passed a cheerless existence in a gloomy underworld. 
The early Hebrew idea of Sheol, “the land of dark¬ 
ness and the shadow of death,” was very similar. 
Such thoughts of the future life left nothing for 
either fear or hope. The Hebrews later came to 
believe in the resurrection of the dead and the last 
judgment, conceptions taken over by Christianity. 


Literature and Art 53 

Literature and Art 

Religion inspired the largest part of Oriental 
literature. The Egyptian Book of the Dead was 
already venerable in 2000 B. c. It was a collection of 
hymns, prayers, and magical phrases to be recited 
by the soul on its journey beyond the grave and in 
the 1 spirit land. A chapter from this work usually 
covered the inner side of the mummy case, or coffin. 

Much more interesting are the two Babylonian 
epics, portions of which have been found on clay tab¬ 
lets in a royal library at Nineveh. The epic of the 
Creation tells how the god Marduk overcame a terri¬ 
ble dragon, the symbol of primeval chaos, and thus 
established order in the universe. With half of the 
body of the dead dragon he made a covering for the 
heavens and set therein the stars. Next, he caused 
the new moon to shine and made it the ruler of the 
night. His last work was the creation of man, in 
order that the service and worship of the gods might 
be established forever. The second epic contains an 
account of a Deluge, sent by the gods to punish sinful 
man. The rain fell for six days and nights and cov¬ 
ered the entire earth. All people were drowned, 
except the Babylonian Noah, his family, and his 
relatives, who safely rode the waters in an ark. This 
ancient narrative so closely resembles the Biblical 
story in Genesis that both must be traced to a com¬ 
mon source. 

The sacred books of the Hebrews, which we call 
the Old Testament, include nearly every kind of 
literature. Sober histories, beautiful stories, exquisite 
poems, wise proverbs, and noble prophecies are found 
in this collection. The influence of the Old Testament 


54 


The Ancient Orient 


upon the Hebrews, and through them upon the Chris¬ 
tian world for nineteen centuries, has been profound. 
We shall not be wrong in regarding this work as the 
most important single contribution made by any 
ancient people to modern civilization. 

The wealth and skill of the Egyptians were not 
lavished in the erection of fine private mansions or 
splendid public buildings. The characteristic works 

Egyptian architecture are the tombs of the kings 
and the temples of the gods.. Even the ruins of these 
structures leave upon the observer an impression of 
peculiar massiveness, solidity, and grandeur. Like 
the Pyramids, they seem built for eternity. 

1 he architecture of the Tigris-Euphrates peoples 
differed entirely from that of the Egyptians, because 
biick, and not stone, formed the chief building ma- 
terial. I n Babylonia the most characteristic structure 
was the temple. It was a solid, square tower, rising 
in stages (usually seven) to the top, where the shrine 
of the deity stood. The different stages were con¬ 
nected by a winding ascent. 7 hese tower-temples 
must have been very conspicuous objects on the plain 
of Shinar. Their presence there gave rise to the 
Hebrew story of the “Tower of Babel” (or Babylon). 
In Assyria the most characteristic structure was the 
palace. The sun-dried bricks, of which both temples 
and palaces were composed, lacked the durability of 

stone and have long since dissolved into shapeless 
mounds. 

The surviving examples of Egyptian sculpture 
consist of bas-reliefs and figures in the round, carved 
from limestone and granite or cast in bronze. 
Though many of the statues appear to our eyes very 
stiff and ungraceful, others are wonderfully lifelike. 


Science 


55 


Some Assyrian bas-reliefs also show a considerable 
development of the artistic sense, especially in the 
representation of animals. 

Painting did not reach the dignity of an indepen¬ 
dent art. It was employed solely for decorative pur¬ 
poses. Bas-reliefs and iwall surfaces were often 
brightly colored. The artist had no knowledge of 
perspective and drew all his figures in profile, with¬ 
out any distinction of light and shade. Indeed, Ori¬ 
ental painting, as well as Oriental sculpture, made 
small pretense to the beautiful. Beauty was born 
into the world with the art of the Greeks. 

Science 

Conspicuous advance took place in the exact 
sciences. A very old Egyptian manuscript contains 
arithmetical problems with fractions as well as whole 
numbers, and geometrical theorems for computing 
the capacity of storehouses and the area of fields. A 
Babylonian table gives squares and cubes correctly 
calculated from i to 60. The number 12 was the 
basis of all reckonings. The division of the circle 
into degrees, minutes, and seconds (360°, 60', 60") is 
a device which illustrates this duodecimal system. 
Weights and measures were also highly developed 
among the Babylonians. 

The cloudless skies and still, warm nights of the 
great river valleys early led to astronomical research. 
Before 4000 B. C. the Egyptians had given up reckon¬ 
ing time by lunar months (the interval between two 
new moons) and had formed a solar calendar consist¬ 
ing of twelve thirty-day months, with five extra days 
at the end of the year. This calendar was taken over 
by the Romans, who added leap years, and from the 


5 6 


The Ancient Orient 


Romans it has come down to us. The Babylonians 
made noteworthy progress in some branches of 
astronomy. They were able to trace the course of the 
sun through the twelve constellations of the zodiac, 
to distinguish five of the planets, and to predict 
eclipses of the sun and of the moon. We do not know 
what instruments were used by the Babylonians for 
their remarkable observations. 

The art of stone masonry arose in Egypt at the close 
of the fourth millennium B. C.— earlier than any¬ 
where else in the world. It soon produced the Great 
Pyramid, the largest stone structure ever erected in 
ancient or (until recently) in modern times. The 
Egyptians were also the first people who learned how 
to raise buildings with vast halls the roofs of which 
were supported by rows of columns (colonnades). 
An upper story, or clerestory, containing windows, 
made it possible to light the interior of these halls. 
The column, the colonnade, and the clerestory, as 
architectural devices, were adopted by Greek and 
Roman builders, from whom they descended to 
medieval and modern Europe. To Babylonia Europe 
owes the round arch and vault, as a means of carrying 
a wall or roof over a void. In both Egypt and Baby¬ 
lonia the transportation of colossal stone monuments 
exhibits a knowledge of the lever, pulley, and 
inclined plane. 

The Oriental peoples made some progress in medi¬ 
cine. A medical treatise found in Egypt distinguishes 
various diseases and notes their symptoms. The curi¬ 
ous characters by which apothecaries indicate grains 
and drams are of Egyptian origin. Even as early as 
the time of Hammurabi, there were physicians and 
surgeons in Babylunia. The healing art, however, 



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Orient and Occident 


57 


was always much mixed up with magic, just as 
astronomy, the scientific study of the heavens, was 
confused with astrology. 

The schools, in both Egypt and Babylonia, were 
attached to the temples and were conducted by the 
priests. Reading and writing formed the chief sub¬ 
jects of study. It took many years to master the 
cuneiform symbols or the even more difficult hiero¬ 
glyphs. Having learned to read and write, the 
pupil was ready to enter upon the career of a scribe. 
When a man wished to send a letter, he had a scribe 
write it, signing it himself by affixing his seal. When 
he received a letter, he usually employed a scribe to 
read it to him. The scribes were also kept busy copy¬ 
ing books on the papyrus paper or clay tablets which 
served as writing materials. Both the Egyptians and 
the Babylonians possessed libraries, usually as 
adjuncts to the temples and hence under priestly 
control. 

These schools and libraries were not freely open to 
the public. As a rule, only the well-to-do could 
secure any learning. The common people remained 
ignorant. Their ignorance involved their intellectual 
bondage to the past; they were slow to abandon time- 
honored superstitions and reluctant to adopt new cus¬ 
toms even when clearly better than the old. The 
absence of popular education, more than anything 
else, tended to make Oriental civilization unpro¬ 
gressive. 

Orient and Occident 

Our study of the ancient Orient has been confined 
chiefly to the Nile and Tigris-Euphrates valleys. The 
Egyptians and the Babylonians originated civiliza- 


58 


The Ancient Orient 


tion during the thousand years between 4000 and 3000 
B. C v while all the rest of the world continued either 
in Neolithic barbarism or Palaeolithic savagery. In 
Egypt and Babylonia men first developed out of the 
tribal state and began to form cities, states, kingdoms, 
and empires; here they first passed from hunting, 
fishing, and herding to the cultivation of the soil, 
manufacturing, and commerce; here first arose metal- 
lurgy, architecture, phonetic writing, mathematics, 
astronomy, medicine, and many other arts and 
sciences indispensable to the higher life of man¬ 
kind. 

After 3000 B. c. civilization began to be diffused 
from its Egypto-Babylonian center. Conquest, trade, 
and travel during the next twenty-five centuries led 
to increasing contact of people. By 500 B. c. the best 
of what the Egyptians and Babylonians had done 
became the commmon possession of the Near East. 

From the IN ear East civilization was transmitted 
to the West. Four peoples, in particular, were agents 
in this piocess. Two of them used the waterways 
between the Orient and the Occident. The Cretans, 
about whom we shall soon study, for many centuries 
carried the products and practical arts of both Egypt 
and Babylonia to the islands of the Aegean and the 
Greek mainland, and even farther west to southern 
Italy, Sicily, and the coast of Spain. After about 
1000 B. c. came the Phoenicians; their influence, as we 
have already seen, was felt in every country washed 
by the Mediterranean. The other two peoples made 
use of land routes. The Hittites, who spoke an Indo- 
European language, from early times spread over 
eastern Asia Minor and northern Syria. There they 
learned much from their Semitic neighbors and after- 


Orient and Occident 


59 


ward communicated their learning to the Lydians of 
western Asia Minor, whose kingdom formed a frag¬ 
ment of the Hittite Empire. From the Lydians, in 
turn, various features of Oriental civilization passed 
over to the Greeks. 


CHAPTER III 


GREECE 

The Lands of the West 

History, which begins in the Near East, for the 
last twenty-five centuries has centered in Europe. 
Modern industry and commerce, modern systems of 
government, modern art, literature, and science are 
very much the creation, during this long period, of 
European peoples. Within the last four hundred 
years, especially, they have occupied and populated 
America and Australia and have brought under their 
control all Asia, except China and Japan, nearly the 
whole.of Africa, and the islands of all the seas. They 
have intioduced into these remote regions their 
languages, laws, customs, and religion, until to-day 
the greater part of the world is subject to European 
influence. 

The geographical advantages enjoyed by Europe 
account, in part, for its historic importance. The sea, 
which washes only the remote edges of Asia, pene¬ 
trates deeply into Europe, forming numerous gulfs 
and bays. Europe has a longer coast-line than Africa 
and South America combined. No other continent 
possesses such opportunities for sea-borne traffic. 
Again, Europe is well supplied with rivers, which are 
navigable for long distances. Another feature of 
European geography is the preponderance of low¬ 
lands over highlands. Beginning in the west with 
southern England, the great European plain stretches 

60 






























































The Lands of die West 


61 


across northern France, Belgium and Holland (the 
“Low Countries”), and northern Germany, and 
broadens eastward into Russia. About two thirds of 
the continent are included in this plain. Further¬ 
more, the mountains of Europe do not present such 
barriers to intercourse as those of Asia. The Alps, 
though very abrupt on the Italian side, slope gradu¬ 
ally northward toward Germany. No other high 
mountains, except the Rockies, have so many easy 
passes or offer so little impediment to movement 
across them. Moreover, the outspurs of the Alps in 
central and southeastern Europe are separated by 
transverse valleys, thus establishing convenient routes 
of communication from one region to another. 

Nearly all Europe lies in the northern half of the 
North Temperate Zone, that is, within those latitudes 
most conducive to the development of a high civiliza¬ 
tion. Nowhere, except beyond the Arctic Circle, 
does excessive cold stunt body and mind, and nowhere 
does enervating heat sap human energies. The cli¬ 
mate is moderated by the Gulf Stream drift, which 
reaches the British Isles and Scandinavia. Climatic 
conditions are made still more favorable by the cir¬ 
cumstance that Europe lies open to the west, with 
great inland seas penetrating deeply from the Atlan¬ 
tic, and with the higher mountain ranges extending 
nearly east and west. The westerly winds, warmed in 
passing over the Gulf Stream drift, can thus spread 
far into the interior, bringing with them an abundant 
rainfall, except in such regions as southern Spain, 
Italy, Greece, and eastern Russia. Europe, in conse¬ 
quence, is the only continent without extensive 
deserts. 

We learned in the first chapter that Europe was 


62 


Greece 


inhabited by man during Palaeolithic times, and that 
with the exception of certain invading peoples who 
came from Asia in antiquity or the Middle Ages, the 
present inhabitants of Europe belong to the White 
Race. They may be separated into three racial types. 
The Baltic or Nordic (northern) type is found in the 
Scandinavian countries and throughout the great 
European plain: it is characterized by a long or nar¬ 
row head, tall stature, very light hair, blue eyes, and 



blond complexion. The Mediterranean (southern 
tyP e ) prevails in the peninsulas of southern Europe 
and the adjoining islands: it is short in-stature and 
brunette in complexion, but is also long-headed. The 
Alpine (central) type comes midway between the 
other two in respect to stature and complexion, but 
has a broad head, unlike either of them. Each of 




















The Lands of the West 


63 


these racial types, despite some fusion with the others, 
still occupies a fairly well-defined area of the conti¬ 
nent. T. he Baltic type possibly originated in Europe 
where it is now found. The Mediterranean and 
Alpine types are believed to have entered Europe 
about the beginning of Neolithic times, the one from 
North Africa, the other from Asia. 

About sixty distinct languages are still spoken in 
Europe. Anciently, there were many more. The 
Turks in the Balkan Peninsula and the Mongols and 
Tatars in Russia still keep their Asiatic tongues. 
The same is true of the Magyars (Hungarians), 
Esthonians, and Finns, who in other respects have 
been thoroughly Europeanized. The remaining 
languages of any importance belong to the Indo- 
European family. 

Racial and linguistic groupings do not necessarily 
coincide in Europe any more than in other parts of 
the world. The North Frenchman is more nearly 
allied in physical characteristics to the North Ger¬ 
man than to the South Frenchman; and the North 
Italian resembles the South German more closely 
than the South Italian or Sicilian. A study of the 
accompanying map will furnish other illustrations of 
the fact that race and language are not convertible 
terms. 

The almost unbroken mountain chain formed by 
the Pyrenees, the Alps, and the Balkans sharply sepa¬ 
rates the northern and central land mass of Europe 
from the southern part of the continent. Twenty-five 
centuries ago Europe beyond these mountain barriers 
had not entered the light of history. Its Celtic, Teu¬ 
tonic, Lettic, and Slavic-speaking inhabitants were 
still barbarians. During ancient times we hear little 


6 4 


Greece 


of them, except as their occasional migrations south¬ 
ward brought them into contact with the civilized 
Graeco-Latin peoples along the Mediterranean. 

The Mediterranean Basin 

The Mediterranean, about 2200 miles in length 
and 500 to 600 miles in greatest breadth, is the most 
extensive inland sea in the world. It washes the 
shores of three continents — Europe, Asia, and 
Africa. Nevertheless, its basin is relatively isolated, 
being confined within a mountain wall on the north 
and an almost impassable desert on the south. The 
climate of the basin falls half-way between tropical 
conditions and the temperate conditions of central 
and northern Europe. The sea exercises a moderating 
influence, however, raising the temperature in the 
rainy season (winter) and lowering it in the dry sea¬ 
son (summer). The rainfall is, on the whole, scanty, 
with the result that the most important trees are the 
vine and the olive, which offer considerable resist¬ 
ance to drought. Their northern and southern limits, 
together with those of the orange, are shown on the 
accompanying map. In respect to both climate and 
vegetation, the Mediterranean basin is thus a region 
of marked individuality, a separate, definite area by 
itself. 

The Mediterranean was well suited for early com¬ 
merce, because of its long and contracted shape, 
indented northern shore, and numerous islands. 
Mariners seldom had to proceed far from the sight 
of land or at a great distance from good harbors. 
Though its storms are often fierce, they are usually 
brief, since the narrow strait of Gibraltar shuts out 
the great waves of the Atlantic. Freedom from high 



The Mediterranean Basin 


65 


tides also facilitates navigation. Such advantages 
made the Mediterranean from a remote period an 
avenue by which everything that the older Eastern 
world had to offer could be passed on to the younger 
West. And the various European peoples themselves 
were able to exchange their products and communi¬ 
cate their ideas and customs along this ^highway of 
nations.” 

The Mediterranean basin divides into two parts. 
The boundary between them occurs near the center, 
where Africa and Sicily almost touch each other 
across a narrow strait. The western part contains, 
besides Sicily, the large islands of Sardinia and Cor¬ 
sica. Between these islands and the Italian coast lies 
the wide expanse of the Tyrrhenian Sea. The eastern 
part includes the Adriatic, Ionian, and Aegean seas. 
It was the last of these which had most importance in 
Greek history. 

The Aegean forms an almost landlocked body of 
water. The Balkan Peninsula, narrowing toward the 
Mediterranean into the smaller peninsula of Greece, 
confines it on the west. On the east it meets a 
boundary in Asia Minor. The southern boundary 
consists of a chain of islands. The only opening north¬ 
ward is found in the Dardanelles (the ancient Helles¬ 
pont), the Sea of Marmora (the ancient Propontis), 
and the Bosporus. 

The islands of the AEgean are a continuation into 
the Mediterranean of the mountain ranges of Europe 
and Asia. In size they vary from tiny Delos, less 
than three miles in length, to the long and narrow 
ridge of Crete. Hundreds of them are sprinkled 
throughout the Aigean, making it possible to cross 
that body of water in almost any direction without 


66 


Greece 


losing sight of land. The islands consequently 
became “stepping stones” between Greece and Asia 
Minor. 

Greece proper — continental Greece — is a tiny 
country. Its greatest length is scarcely more than two 
hundred and fifty miles; its greatest breadth is only 
one hundred and eighty miles. Mountain ridges, off¬ 
shoots of the Balkans, break it up into numberless 
small valleys and glens, which seldom widen into 



RAINFALL 
1 I Under 10 Inches 

I I IP to 20 Inches 

I I Over 20 Inches 

Scale of Miles 

0 100 200 300 400 sp o 

o 3 


-Northern Limits of the Vine 

+ + + + +*N. & S. Limits of the Orange 
-N. & S. Limits of the Olive 

_ THE M.-N, WORKS. BUFFALO. N.V 

IP— Longitude East 20° from Greenwich 


plains. The coast-line is most irregular— a constant 
succession of sharp promontories and curving bays. 
No place in Greece is more than fifty miles from a 
mountain range or more than forty miles from some 
long arm of the Mediterranean. 

The western coast of Asia Minor resembles Greece 
in its deep indentations, variety of scenery, and mild 
climate. The river valleys and plains of this region, 









































The /Egeans 67 

however, are larger, more numerous, and more fertile 
than those of the Greek mainland. 

The Aegeans 

The first civilization to arise in Europe was the 
work of gifted Aegean peoples. They belonged to 
the dark-skinned, short-statured, long-headed branch 
of the White Race. This Mediterranean racial type, 
as has been noted, probably originated in North 
Africa and spread entirely around the Mediter¬ 
ranean, where its descendants still live to-day. Dur¬ 
ing Neolithic times it was already occupying the 
Aegean Islands, the coasts of Greece, and western 
Asia Minor. Here modern excavations, especially 
Gnossus in Crete, IMycenss and Eiryns in Greece, 
and Troy in Asia Minor have revealed centers of 
civilized life almost as venerable as those of Egypt 
and Babylonia. As early as 3000 B. c. the iEgeans 
began to give up stone implements in favor of copper 
and bronze. These two metals were doubtless intro¬ 
duced from the Near East. The Copper-Bronze Age 
lasted in the Aegean for about two thousand years. 

Aegean civilization first arose in Crete and 
developed most highly there. We can understand 
why. Crete is a kind of half-way house between 
Europe and the Near East. It lies only a few days’ 
sail from the mouths of the Nile and the shores of 
western Asia. The island was consequently in a 
position early to receive and profit by all the culture 
of the Orient. From Crete, in turn, cultural influences 
spread throughout the Aegean. 

Aegean civilization shows several marked char¬ 
acteristics. The people lived in villages and cities, 
where the frowning fortress of the chief or king 


68 


Greece 


looked down on the humble dwellings of common 
men. The monarch, as in the Orient, was doubtless 
a thorough despot, whose subjects toiled to build the 
great palaces and tombs. If life was hard and cheer¬ 
less for them, it must have been pleasant enough for 
court ladies and gentlemen, who occupied luxurious 
apartments, wore fine clothing and jewelry, and 
enjoyed such exhibitions as bull-fights and the con¬ 
tests of pugilists. 

Remarkable progress took place in some of the 
arts. Aegean architects raised imposing palaces of 
hewn and squared stone and arranged them for a life 
of comfort. The palace at Gnossus in Crete even had 
•tile water-pipes, bathrooms, and other conveniences 
which have hitherto been regarded as of recent origin. 
Brilliant wall paintings — hunting scenes, land¬ 
scapes, portraits of men and women — excite our 
admiration. The costumes of the women, with their 
flounced skirts, puffed sleeves, low-cut bodices, and 
gloved hands, were astonishingly modern in appear¬ 
ance. AEgean artists made porcelain vases and deco¬ 
rated them with plant and animal forms. They 
carved ivory, engraved gems, and inlaid metals. It 
was doubtless from these AEgeans that the later 
Greeks inherited their artistic genius. 

A form of recording thoughts had been secured. 
I he explorations in Crete show that its inhabitants 
had passed from picture writing to sound writing. 
The palace of Gnossus contained several thousand 
clay tablets, with inscriptions in a language as yet 
unread. About seventy characters appear to have 
been in common use. They probably denote syllables 
and indicate a decided advance over both Egyptian 
and Babylonian scripts. 



















The Greeks 


69 


Much commerce existed throughout the Mediter¬ 
ranean during iEgean times. Products of Cretan art 
or imitations of them are found as far west as Italy, 
Sicily, Sardinia, and Spain, and as far east as inland 
Asia Minor, Syria, and Babylonia. Crete also en- 
joyed close commercial relations with both Egypt and 
Cyprus. In those ancient days Crete was mistress of 
the seas, and the merchants of that island preceded 
the Phoenicians as carriers between the Near East 
and Europe. 

Aegean civilization did not penetrate deeply into 
Europe. The interior of Greece remained the home 
of barbarous tribes, who had not yet learned to build 
cities, to create beautiful objects of art, or to traffic on 
the seas. Between about 1500 and 1000 B. c. their 
destructive inroads brought about the downfall of 
Aegean civilization. 

The Greeks 

The invaders who plunged the Aegean region once 
mote into barbarism were a tall, light-complexioned, 
fair-haired, blue-eyed people, probably of the Baltic 
(Nordic) racial type. Their speech was Greek, 
which belongs to the Indo-European family of lan¬ 
guages. They lived a nomadic life as hunters and 
herdsmen. When the grasslands became insufficient 
to support their sheep and cattle, these northerners 
began to move gradually southward into the Danube 
Valley and thence through the many passes of the 
Balkans into Greece. The iron weapons which they 
possessed doubtless gave them a great advantage in 
conflicts with the bronze-using natives of this region. 
Sometimes the invaders must have exterminated or 
enslaved the earlier inhabitants; more often, perhaps, 


70 


Greece 


they settled peacefully in the sunny south. Conquer¬ 
ors and conquered slowly intermingled, thus pro¬ 
ducing the one Greek people which is found at the 
dawn of history. 

The Greeks, as we shall now call them, did not 
stop at the southern limits of Greece. They also occu¬ 
pied Crete and the other Aegean Islands, together 
with the western coast of Asia Minor. Their settle¬ 
ments in Asia Minor came to be known as iTolia (or 



tribes. The entire basin of the Aegean henceforth 
became the Greek world. 

Several hundred years elapsed between the end of 
/Egean civilization and the beginning of historic 
times in the Greek world, about 750 B. C. This period 
is usually known as the Homeric Age, because vari¬ 
ous aspects of it are reflected in two epic poems called 








































7i 


The Greek City-States 

the Iliad and the Odyssey. The former gives the 
story of a Greek expedition led by Agamemnon, king 
of Mycenae, against Troy; the latter relates the wan¬ 
derings of the Greek hero Odysseus on his return 
from Troy. The two epics were probably composed 
in Ionia, and by the Greeks were attributed to a blind 
bard named Homer. Many modern scholars, how¬ 
ever, regard them as the work of several generations 
of poets. 

The Iliad and the Odyssey show how rude was the 
culture of the Homeric Age, as compared with the 
splendid ^Tgean civilization which it displaced. The 
Greeks at this time had not wholly abandoned the life 
of shepherds for that of farmers. Wealth still con¬ 
sisted chiefly of docks and herds. Nearly every free¬ 
man, however, owned a little plot of land on which 
he cultivated grain and cared for his orchard and 
vineyard. Though iron was now used for weapons 
and farm implements, bronze continued to be the 
commoner and cheaper metal. Commerce was little 
followed. People depended upon Phoenician mer¬ 
chants for articles of luxury which they could not 
produce themselves. A class of skilled workmen had 
not arisen. There were no architects who could raise 
magnificent palaces and no artists who could paint or 
carve with the skill of their TEgean predecessors. The 
backwardness of the Homeric Greeks is also indi¬ 
cated by their failure to develop a system of writing 
to replace the old Cretan script, which had utterly 
perished. 

Social life was very simple. Princes tended flocks 
and built houses; princesses carried water and 
washed clothes. Agamemnon, Odysseus, and other 
heroes were not ashamed to be their own butchers and 


72 


Greece 


cooks. Coined money was unknown. Values were 
reckoned in oxen or in lumps of gold and silver. 
Warfare was constant and cruel. Piracy, flourishing 
upon the unprotected seas, ranked as an honorable 
occupation. Murders were frequent. The murderer 
had to dread, not a public trial and punishment, but 
rather the private vengeance of the kinsman of the 
victim. On the other hand, both the Iliad and the 
Odyssey contain many charming descriptions of 
family life. “There is nothing mightier or nobler,” 
sings the poet, “than when man and wife are of one 
heart and mind in a house, a grief to their foes, to 

their friends great joy, but their own hearts know 
it best.” 

The Homeric Greeks and their successors wor¬ 
shiped various gods and goddesses, twelve of whom 
formed a select council. It was supposed to meet on 
snow-crowned Olympus in northern Thessaly. Many 
Olympian deities appear to have been simply per¬ 
sonifications of natural phenomena. Zeus, “father of 
gods and men,” as Homer calls him, was a heaven 
god, who gathered the clouds in storms and hurled 
the lightning bolt. His brother, Poseidon, ruled the 
sea. His wife, Hera, presided over the life of women 
and especially over the sacred rites of marriage. His 
son, Apollo, a god of light, who warded off darkness 
and evil, became the ideal of manly beauty and the 
patron of music, poetry, and the healing art. Athena, 
a goddess who sprang full-grown from the forehead 
of Zeus, embodied the ideal of wisdom and all 
womanly virtues. These and other divinities were 
really magnified men and women, with human pas¬ 
sions and appetites, but with more than human power 
and endowed with immortality. Morally, they were 


The Greeks 


73 


no better than their worshipers. But Homer, who 
sometimes represents them as deceitful, dissolute, and 
cruel, could also say, “Verily the blessed gods love 
not evil deeds, but they reverence justice and the 
righteous acts of men.” 

Greek ideas of the future life were dismal to an 
extreme. All men, it was thought, went down after 
death to Hades and passed there a shadowy, joyless 
existence. The Greek Hades thus closely resembled 
the Hebrew Sheol and the Babylonian underworld of 
the dead. 

The Greeks believed that communications from 
the gods were received at certain places called oracles. 
The oldest of Greek oracles was that of Zeus at 
Dodona in Epirus. Here the priests professed to 
read the divine will in the rustling leaves of an oak 
tree sacred to Zeus. At Delphi in Phocis the god 
Apollo was supposed to speak through a prophetess. 
The words which she uttered when thus “possessed” 
were interpreted by the attendant priests and deliv¬ 
ered to inquirers. The fame of the Delphic oracle 
spread throughout Greece and reached foreign lands. 
Every year great numbers of people visited Delphi. 
Statesmen wished to learn the fate of their political 
schemes; ambassadors sent by kings and cities asked 
advice as to weighty matters of peace and war; and 
colonists sought directions as to the best country in 
which to settle. The oracle endured for over a thou¬ 
sand years. It was still honored at the close of the 
fourth century A. D v when a Roman emperor, after 
the adoption of Christianity, silenced it forever. 

The Greeks brought with them from their northern 
home a great love of athletics. Their most famous 
athletic festivals were those in honor of Zeus at Olym- 


74 


Greece 


pia in Elis. The Olympian games took place every 
fourth year, in midsummer. A sacred truce was pro¬ 
claimed for an entire month, so that the thousands 
of spectators from every part of the Greek world 
might arrive and depart in safety. No one not of 
Greek blood and no one convicted of crime might be 
a competitor. The games occupied five days, begin¬ 
ning with contests in running. There was a short- 
distance dash through the length of the stadium, a 
quarter-mile race, and also a longer race, probably 
for two or three miles. Then followed a contest con¬ 
sisting of five events: the long jump, hurling the dis¬ 
cus, throwing the javelin, running, and wrestling. 
Other contests included boxing, horse races, and 
chariot races. 

The Olympian games were religious in character, 
because the display of manly strength was thought 
to be a spectacle most pleasing to the gods. The win¬ 
ning athlete received only a wreath of wild olive at 
Olympia, but at home he enjoyed the gifts and venera¬ 
tion of his fellow citizens. The thousands of visitors 
to the festival gave it the character of a great fair, 
where merchants set up their shops and money¬ 
changers their tables. Poets recited their lines before 
admiring audiences, and artists exhibited their mas¬ 
terpieces. Heralds read treaties recently framed 
between Greek cities, in order to have them widely 
known. Oiators spoke on subjects of general interest. 
Until their abolition, along with the Delphic oracle, 
the Olympian games did much to preserve a sense of 
fellowship among Greek communities. 

The Greek language formed the strongest tie unit¬ 
ing the Greeks. Everywhere they used the same beau¬ 
tiful and expressive speech, which still lives in modi- 


75 


The Greek City-States 

fied form on the lips of several million people in 
modern Greece. Greek literature likewise made for 
unity. The Iliad and the Odyssey were recited in 
every Greek village and city for centuries. They 
formed the principal text-book in the schools; an 
Athenian philosopher well calls Homer the Educa¬ 
tor” of Greece. Religion provided still another tie, 
for all Greeks worshiped the same Olympian gods, 
visited the oracles at Dodona and Delphi, and 
attended the Olympian games. A common language, 
literature, and religion were cultural bonds of union; 
they did not lead to the political unification of the 
Greek world. 


The Greek City-States 

A Greek city grew up about a hill of refuge 
(acropolis), to which the people of the neighborhood 
resorted in time of danger. This mount would be 
crowned with' a fortress and the temples of the gods. 
Not far away was the market-place, where the citi¬ 
zens conducted business, held meetings, and enjoyed 
social intercourse. The most beautiful buildings in 
the city were always the temples and other public 
structures. Private houses, for the most part, were 
insignificant in appearance, often of only one story, 
and covered with a flat roof. Judged by modern 
standards, a Greek city was small. Athens, at the 
climax of its power, may have had a quarter of a 
million people; Thebes, Argos, and Corinth, the next 
largest places, probably had between 50,000 and 100,- 
000 inhabitants; Sparta probably had less than 50,000. 
These figures include all classes of the population — 
citizens, slaves, and resident foreigners. 

The city included not only the territory within its 



76 


Greece ■ 


walls, but also the surrounding district, where many 
of the citizens lived. Being independent and self- 
governing, it is properly called a city-state. Just as 
a modern state, it could declare war, arrange treaties, 
and make alliances with its neighbors. 

The citizens were very closely associated. They 
believed themselves to be descended from a common 
ancestor and they shared a common worship of the 
patron god or hero who had them under his protec¬ 
tion. These ties of supposed kinship and religion 
made citizenship a privilege which a person enjoyed 
only by birth and which he lost by removal to another 
city-state. Elsewhere he was only a foreigner lacking 
legal rights—a man without a country. 

The independent city-states which from early 
times arose in the Near East eventually combined 
into kingdoms and empires under one government. 
The like never happened in the Greek world. Moun¬ 
tain ranges and deep inlets of the sea, by cutting up 
Greece proper into small, easily defended districts, 
made it almost impossible for one city-state to con¬ 
quer and hold in subjection neighboring communi¬ 
ties for any length of time. Alany city-states, more¬ 
over were on islands or were scattered along remote 
coasts of the Mediterranean and the Black Sea. The 
result was that the Greeks never came together in 
one nation. Their city feeling, or civic patriotism, 
took the place of our love of country. 

Religious influences sometimes proved strong 
enough to produce loose federations of tribes or city- 
states known as amphictyonies. The people living 
around a famous sanctuary would meet to observe 
their festivals in common and to guard the shrine of 
their divinity. One of these local unions arose on 



77 


The Greek City-States 

the little island of Delos, the reputed birthplace of 
Apollo. A still more noteworthy example was the 
Delphic Amphictyony. It included twelve tribes 
and cities of central Greece and Thessaly. They 
established a council which took the temple of Apollo 
at Delphi under its protection and superintended the 
athletic games held there in honor of the god. One 
of the regulations binding on the members reads: 
“We will not destroy any amphictyonic town; we 
will not cut off any amphictyonic town from running 
water.” This solemn oath did not always prevent the 
members of the Delphic Amphictyony from fighting 
one another and their neighbors; nevertheless, the 
federation deserves mention as the earliest peace 
agency known to history. 

During the Homeric Age each city-state had a 
king, “the shepherd of the people.” The king did not 
possess absolute authority, as in the Orient; he was 
more or less controlled by a council of nobles. They 
helped him in judgment and sacrifice, followed him 
to war, and filled the principal offices. Both king 
and nobles were obliged to consult the common peo¬ 
ple on matters of great importance, such as making 
war or declaring peace. The citizens would then be 
summoned to meet in the market-place, where they 
shouted assent to the proposals laid before them or 
showed disapproval by silence. This public assembly 
had little importance in the Homeric Age, but later 
it became the center of Greek democracy. 

After the opening of historic times in Greece many 
city-states began to change their form of government. 
In some of them, for example, Thebes and Corinth, 
the nobles became strong enough to abolish the king- 
ship altogether. Monarchy, the rule of one, thus 


78 


Greece 


gave way to aristocracy, the rule of the nobles. In 
Sparta and Argos the kings were not driven out, 
but their authority was much lessened. Some city- 
states came under the control of usurpers, whom the 
Greeks called “tyrants.” A tyrant was a man who 
gained supreme power by force or guile and gov¬ 
erned for his own benefit without regard to the laws. 
There were many such tyrannies during the seventh 
and sixth centuries B. c. Still other city-states, of 
which Athens formed the most conspicuous instance, 
went through an entire cycle of changes from king- 
ship to aristocracy, thence to tyranny, and finally to 
democracy, or popular rule. 

The city-states most prominent in Greek history 
'\ere Sparta and Athens. Sparta had been founded 
at a remote period by Greek invaders of southern 
Greece (the Peloponnesus). It conquered some of 
the neighboring communities and entered into alli¬ 
ance with others, so that by ^oo B. C. its power ex¬ 
tended over the greater part of the Peloponnesus. 
The Spartans were obviously good soldiers, but they 
were little more. They had no industries of impor¬ 
tance, cared nothing for commerce, and lived upon the 
produce of their farms, which were worked by serfs. 
The Spartans never created anything worth while in 
literature, art, or philosophy. When not fighting, 
they passed their time in military drill and warlike 
exercises. Even their government bore a martial 
stamp. It was a monarchy in form, but since there 
were always two kings reigning at once, neither could 
become very powerful. The real management of 
affairs lay in the hands of five men, called ephors, who 
were elected every year by the citizens. The ephors 
accompanied the kings in war and directed their 



HERMES AND DIONYSUS 

Museum of Olympia 

An original statue by the great sculptor, Praxiteles. It was found in 1877 a.d. at Olympia. 
Hermes is represented carrying the child Dionysus, whom Zeus had intrusted to his care.' 
The symmetrical body of Hermes is faultlessly modeled; the poise of his head is full of dignity; 
his expression is refined and thoughtful. Manly strength and beauty have never been better 
embodied than in this work. 





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Colonial Expansion of Greece 


79 


actions; guided the deliberations of the council of 
nobles and public assembly; superintended the edu¬ 
cation of children; and exercised a paternal over¬ 
sight of everybody’s private life. Nowhere else in 
the Greek world was the welfare of the individual 
so thoroughly subordinated to the interests of the 
society of which he formed a unit. 

The city-state of Athens stood in marked contrast 
to Sparta. Athens, by 500 B. C v had rid itself of kings 
and tyrants, had overthrown the power of the nobles, 
and had created the first really democratic govern¬ 
ment in antiquity. Later sections will describe this 
Athenian democracy and set forth, also, some of the 
contributions of the Athenian genius to the artistic 
and intellectual life of mankind. 

Colonial Expansion of Greece 

The Greeks, with the sea at their doors, naturally 
became sailors, traders, and colonizers. After the 
middle of the eighth century B. C v the city-states 
began to plant numerous settlements along the shores 
of the Mediterranean and the Black Sea. The great 
age of colonization covered about two hundred and 
fifty years. 

Trade was one motive for colonization. The 
Greeks, like the Phoenicians, were able to realize 
large profits by exchanging their manufactured goods 
for the food and raw materials of other countries. 
Land hunger was another motive. The poor soil of 
Greece could not support many inhabitants, and, as 
population increased, emigration offered the only 
means of relieving the pressure of numbers. A third 
motive was political and social unrest. The city- 
states at this period contained many men of adven- 


8o 


Greece 


turous disposition, who were ready to seek in foreign 
lands a refuge from the oppression of nobles or 
tyrants. They hoped to find abroad more freedom 
than they had at home. 

A Greek colony was not simply a trading-post; it 
was a center of Greek life. The colonists continued 
to be Greeks in language, customs, and religion; they 
called themselves “men away from home.” Mother 
city and daughter colony traded with each other and 
in time of danger helped each other. The sacred fire 
cairied from the public hearth of the old community 
to the new settlement formed a symbol of the close 
ties binding them together. 

The Greeks established many colonies along the 
coast of the northern Aegean and on both sides of the 
passages leading into the Black Sea. Their most im¬ 
portant settlement here was Byzantium, upon the site 
where Constantinople now stands. The colonies 
which fringed the Black Sea were centers for the 
supply of fish, wood, wool, grain, meats, and slaves. 
The large profits to be gained by trade made the 
Greeks willing to live in what was then a wild and 
inhospitable region. 

The Gieeks could feel more at home in southern 
T/aly, where the genial climate, clear air, and spark¬ 
ling sea recalled their native land. They made so 
many settlements in this region that it came to be 
known as Great Greece (Magna Gracia). One of 
these was Cumae, on the coast just north of the Bay 
of Naples. Emigrants from Cumae, in turn, built the 
city of Naples (. Neapolis)\ which in Roman times 
formed a center of Greek culture and even to-day 
possesses a large Greek population. Other important 
colonies in southern Italy included Taranto (Taren- 


The Persian Wars 


81 


turn), Reggio ( Regium ), and Messina. The most 
important colony in Sicily was Syracuse, established 
by Corinth. The Greeks were not able to expand over 
all Sicily, owing to the opposition of the Carthagin¬ 
ians, who had numerous possessions at its western 
extremity. 

The Greeks were also prevented by the Carthagin¬ 
ians from gaining much of a foothold in Corsica and 
Sardinia and on the coast of Spain. The city of Mar¬ 
seilles ( Massilia ), at the mouth of the Rhone, was the 
chief Greek settlement in this part of the Mediter¬ 
ranean. Two colonies in the southeastern corner of 
the Mediterranean were Cyrene, west of Egypt, and 
Naucratis, in the Delta of the Nile. - From now on 
many Greek travelers visited Egypt to see the won¬ 
ders of that strange old country. Greek colonies were 
also established in Cyprus and along the southern 
coast of Asia Minor. 

Greek colonial expansion formed one of the most 
significant movements in ancient history, because it 
spread Greek culture over so many lands. To dis¬ 
tinguish themselves from the foreigners, or “barbari¬ 
ans,” about them, the Greeks began to give themselves 
the common name of Hellenes. Hellas, their country, 
came to include all the territory possessed by Hellenic 
peoples. The life of the Greeks, henceforth, was con¬ 
fined no longer within the narrow limits of the 
/Egean. Wherever rose a Greek city, there was a 
scene of Greek history. 

The Persian Wars, 499-479 b. c. 

The creation of the Persian Empire almost imme¬ 
diately reacted upon the Greek world. Cyrus the 
Great, the first Persian conqueror, destroyed the king- 


82 


Greece 


dom of Lydia, thus becoming overlord of the Greek 
cities in Asia Minor. His son, Cambyses, annexed 
Cyprus and after subduing Egypt proceeded to add 
Cyrene and other Greek colonies in Africa to the 
Persian dominions. The entire coast of the eastern 
Mediterranean came in this way under the control of 
a single, powerful, and aggressive state. 

The accession of Darius the Great to the throne 
of Persia only increased the dangers that overshad¬ 
owed the Greek world. Darius desired to secure his 
possessions on the northwest by extending them as 
far as the Danube River, which would furnish an 
admirable frontier. Accordingly, he entered Europe 
with a large army and marched against the barbarous 
but warlike Scythians, then living on both sides of 
the lower Danube. This enterprise was apparently 
a great success. Even the Scythians learned to trem¬ 
ble at the name of Persia’s king. After the return of 
Darius to Asia, his lieutenants conquered the Greek 
settlements on the northern shore of the Dardanelles 
and the Bosporus, together with the wild tribes of 
Thrace and Macedonia. The Persian Empire now 
included a considerable part of the Balkan Peninsula 
as far as Greece. 

Not long after the European expedition of Darius, 
the Ionian cities of Asia Minor revolted against 
Persia. The Ionians sought the help of Sparta, the 
chief military state of Greece. The Spartans refused 
to take part in the war, but the Athenians, who real¬ 
ized the menace to Greece from the Persian advance, 
aided their Ionian kindred with both ships and 
soldiers. The allied forces captured and destroyed 
Sardis, the old capital of Lydia. The rest of the 
Asiatic Greeks now joined the Ionians, and even 


The Persian Wars 


83 


Thrace threw off the Persian yoke. These successes 

were only temporary. The revolting cities could not 

hold out against the vast resources of Persia. One 

by one they fell again into the hands of the Great 
King. 

Quiet had no sooner been restored in Asia Minor 
than Darius made ready to reassert Persian su¬ 
premacy in the Balkan Peninsula and to punish 



Athens for her share in the Ionian Revolt. Only the 
first part of this program was carried out. A large 
army, commanded by Mardonius, the son-in-law of 
the Persian monarch, soon reconquered Thrace and 
received the submission of Macedonia. Mardonius 
could not proceed farther, however, because the Per- 











































8 4 


Greece 


sian fleet, on which his army depended for supplies, 
was wrecked off the promontory of Mount Athos. 

The partial failure of the first Persian expedition 
only aroused Darius to renewed exertions. Two years 
later another fleet, bearing perhaps twenty thousand 
soldiers, set out from Ionia to Greece. Datis and 
Artaphernes, the Persian leaders, sailed across the 
Aegean and landed on the plain of Marathon, twenty- 
six miles from Athens. 

The situation of the Athenians seemed desperate. 
They had scarcely ten thousand men with whom to 
face an army at least twice as large and hitherto 
invincible. The Spartans promised support, but 
delayed sending troops at the critical moment. 
Nevertheless, the Athenians decided to take the 
offensive. Their able general, Miltiades, believed 
that the Persians, however numerous, were no match 
for heavy-armed Greek soldiers. The issue of the 
battle of Marathon proved him right. The Athenians 
crossed the plain at the quickstep and in the face of 
a shower of arrows drove the Persians to their ships. 
Datis and Artaphernes then sailed for home, with 
their errand of vengeance unfulfilled. 

‘‘Ten years after Marathon,” says the Greek his¬ 
torian Thucydides, “the ‘barbarians’ returned with 
the vast armament which was to enslave Greece.” 
Darius was now dead, but his son Xerxes had 
determined to complete his task. Great quantities of 
provisions were collected; the Dardanelles strait was 
bridged with boats; and the promontory of Mount 
Athos, where a previous fleet had met shipwreck, was 
pierced with a canal. An army, estimated to exceed 
one hundred thousand men, was brought together 
from all parts of the Great King’s realm. He evi- 


The Persian Wars 


85 

dently intended to crush the Greeks by sheer weight 
of numbers. 

Xerxes did. not have to attack a united Greece. 
Some Greek states submitted without fighting, when 
Persian heralds came to demand “earth and water,” 
the customary symbols of submission. Some other 
states remained neutral throughout the struggle. But 
Athens and Sparta, with their allies, remained joined 
for resistance to the end. 

Early in the year 480 B. C. the Persian host moved 
out of Sardis, crossed the Dardanelles, and advanced 
as far as the pass of Thermopylae, commanding the 
entrance into central Greece. This position, one of 
great natural strength, was held by a few thousand 
Greeks under the Spartan king, Leonidas. Xerxes 
for two days hurled his best troops against the 
defenders of Thermopylae, only to find that numbers 
did not avail in that narrow defile. There is no telling 
how long the handful of Greeks might have resisted, 
had not the Persians found a road over the mountain 
in the rear of the pass. Leonidas and his men were 
now attacked both in front and from behind. Xerxes 
at length won the pass — but only over the bodies of 
its heroic defenders. Years later a monument to their 
memory was raised on the field of battle. It bore the 
simple inscription: “Stranger, go tell the Spartans 
that we lie here in obedience to their commands.” 

The Persians now marched rapidly through central 
Greece to Athens, but found a deserted city. Upon 
the advice of Themistocles, ablest of the Athenian 
leaders, the non-combatants had withdrawn to places 
of safety and the entire fighting force of Athens had 
gone on shipboard. The Greek fleet, which consisted 
chiefly of Athenian vessels under the command of 



86 


Greece 


Themistocles, then took up a position in the strait 
separating the island of Salamis from Attica and 
awaited the enemy. The Persians at Salamis had 
many more ships than the Greeks, but Themistocles 
believed that in the narrow strait their numbers would 
be a disadvantage to them. Such turned out to be the 
case. The Persians fought well, but their vessels, 
crowded together, could not navigate properly and 
even wrecked one another by collision. After an all¬ 
day contest what remained of their fleet withdrew to 
Asia Minor. The Great King himself had no heart 
for any more fighting. However, he left Mardonius, 
with a large body of picked troops, to subjugate the 
Greeks on land. So the real crisis of the war was 
yet to come. 

Mardonius passed the winter quietly in Thessaly, 
preparing for the spring campaign. The Greeks, in 
their turn, made a final effort. A Spartan army, sup¬ 
ported by the Athenians and other allies, met the 
enemy near the little town of Plataea in Bceotia. The 
Greek soldiers, with their long spears, huge shields, 
and heavy swords, were completely successful. At 
about the same time as this battle the remainder of 
the Persian fleet suffered a crushing defeat at Mycale, 
on the Ionian coast. These two engagements really 
ended the Persian wars. Never again did Persia 
make a serious effort to conquer Greece. 

The Persian wars were much more than a contest 
for supremacy between two rival powers. They were 
a struggle between East and West; between Oriental 
despotism and Occidental democracy. Had Persia 
won, the fresh, vigorous Western civilization then 
being developed by Athens and other Greek states 
would have been submerged, probably for ages, under 


Athens 


87 

the influx of Eastern ideas and customs. The Greek 
victory saved Europe for better things. It was a 
victory for human freedom. 

Athens, 479-431 b. c 

Greek history, for half a century after the close of 
the Persian wars, centers about Athens. She was now 
the most populous of Greek cities. She possessed an 
extensive commerce throughout the Mediterranean 
and the Black Sea. Her citizens were energetic; her 
government was a democracy. The Athenians’also 
enjoyed the prestige which resulted from their suc¬ 
cessful resistance to Persia. Herodotus even calls 
them the saviors of Greece. “Next to the gods,” he 
says, “they repulsed the invader.” 

In order to remove the danger of another Persian 
attack, the Athenians formed a defensive league with 
their Greek kindred in Asia Minor and on the TEge an 
Islands. It included, ultimately, over two hundred 
city-states. Some of the wealthier members agreed 
to provide ships and crews for the allied fleet. All 
the other members preferred to make their contribu¬ 
tions in money, allowing Athens to build and equip 
the ships. Athenian officials collected the revenues, 
which were placed for protection in the temple of 
Apollo on the island of Delos. 

The Delian League formed the most promising 
step which the Greeks had yet taken in the direction 
of federal government. It might have developed into 
a United States of Greece had the Athenians shown 
more wisdom and justice in dealing with their allies. 
Unfortunately, the Athenians, proceeded to use the 
naval force which had been formed by the contribu¬ 
tions of the league as a means of bringing its members 


88 


Greece 


into dependence upon Athens. The Delian commu¬ 
nities were compelled to accept governments like 
those of Athens, to endure the presence of Athenian 
garrisons in their midst, to furnish soldiers for Athe¬ 
nian armies, and to pay an annual tribute. Even the 
common treasury of the league was eventually trans¬ 
ferred from Delos to Athens. What had started out 
as a voluntary association of free and independent 
states thus ended by becoming an Athenian Empire. 
It contained about two hundred towns and cities in 
Asia Minor and the Aegean Islands. 

The Athenians governed imperially, but they 
belonged to a democratic state. Democracy, the rule 
of the sovereign people, was unknown in the ancient 
Orient. It formed a Greek contribution, especially 
an Athenian contribution, to civilization. The Ath¬ 
enians had now learned how unjust could be the rule 
of a king, a tyrant, or a privileged aristocracy. They 
tried, instead, to afford every free citizen, whether 
rich or poor, whether noble or commoner, an oppor¬ 
tunity to hold office, to serve in the law courts, and 
to participate in legislation. 

The center of Athenian democracy was the popular 
assembly. All citizens who had reached twenty years 
of age were members. The number present at meet- 
mg rarely exceeded five thousand, however, because 
so many Athenians lived outside the walls in the 
country distncts of Attica. The popular assembly 
met every eight or nine days on the slopes of a hill 
called the Pnyx. After listening to speeches, the 
people voted, usually by show of hands, on the 
measures laid before them. They settled in this way 
all questions of war and peace, sent out military and 
naval expeditions, sanctioned public expenditures, 








































































































Athens 89 

and exercised general control over the affairs of 
Athens and her dependencies. 

Democracy, then, reached its height in ancient 
Athens. The people ruled, and they ruled directly. 
Every citizen could take some active part in politics. 
Such a government worked well in the conduct of a 
small city-state. It proved to be less successful in the 
management of an empire. The subject communities 
of the Delian League were unrepresented at Athens. 
They had no one to speak for them in the public 
assembly or before the law courts. Hence their inter- 

4 » 

ests were always subordinated to those of the Atheni¬ 
ans. We shall notice the same absence of a repre¬ 
sentative system in ancient Rome, after that city had 
become mistress of the Mediterranean basin. 

But even in Athens, most democratic of all Greek 
city-states, democracy was really class rule. Not all 
the free men — to say nothing of the numerous 
slaves — were citizens. The law restricted citizen¬ 
ship to those free men who were the sons of an Athe¬ 
nian father (himself a citizen) and an Athenian 
mother. Consequently, the thousands of foreign mer¬ 
chants and artisans living in Athens could not take 
any part in its government. This jealous attitude 
toward foreigners contrasts with the liberal policy of 
modern countries, such as our own, in naturalizing 
immigrants. 

Athens contained many artisans. Their daily tasks 
gave them scant opportunity to engage in the exciting 
game of politics. The average rate of wages was very 
low. In spite of cheap food and modest requirements 
for clothing and shelter, it must have been difficult 
for the city workman to keep body and soul together. 
Outside of Athens lived the peasants, whose little 


90 


Greece 


farms produced the olives, grapes, and figs for which 
Attica was celebrated. There were also thousands of 
slaves, in Athens, as in other city-states of Greece. 
Their number was so great and their labor so cheap 
that we may think of them as taking the place of mod¬ 
ern machines. Slaves did most of the work on large 
estates o\\ ned by wealthy men, toiled in the mines 
and quarries, and served as oarsmen on ships. The 
system of slavery lowered the dignity of free labor 
and tended to prevent the rise of poorer citizens to 
positions of responsibility. In Greece, as in the 
Orient, slavery cast a blight over industrial life. 

The Athenian city, during this period, formed the 
commercial center of Greece. Exports of wine and 
olive oil, pottery, metal wares, and objects of art were 
sent from Piraeus, the port of Athens, to every part of 
the Greek world. The imports from the Black Sea 
region, Thrace, Asia Minor, Egypt, Sicily, and Italy 
included such commodities as salt, dried fish, wool, 
timber, hides, and, above all, great quantities of 
wheat. As is the case with modern England, Athens 

could feed all her people only by bringing in food 
from abroad. 


Athenian Culture 

The wealth which the Athenians found in industry 
and commerce, together with the tribute paid by the 
Delian League, enabled them to adorn their city with 
statues and buildings. The most beautiful monuments 
arose on the Acropolis. Access to this steep rock was 
gained through a superb entrance gate, or Propylaia, 
constructed to resemble the front of a temple with 
columns and pediment. Just beyond the Propylsa 
stood a huge, bronze statue of the goddess Athena by 


Propylaea 

ACROPOLIS OF ATHENS (Restoration) 



Erectheum Statue ot Athena Parthenon 









































ACROPOLIS OF ATHENS FROM THE SOUTHWEST 





















Athenian Culture 


9 i 


the sculptor Phidias. On the crest of the Acropolis 
were two temples. The smaller one, named after 
Erechtheus, a legendary Athenian king, was of the 
Ionic order of architecture. The larger one, dedi¬ 
cated to the Virgin Athena (Athena Parthenos), was 
of the Doric order. It contained a gold and ivory 
statue (also by Phidias) of the goddess who had the 
Athenian city under her protection. A Greek temple, 
such as the Parthenon, was merely a rectangular 
building, provided with doors, but without windows, 
and surrounded by a single or a double row of col¬ 
umns. The temple did not serve as a meeting place 
for worshipers, but only as a sanctuary for the deity. 
Less imposing than the majestic structures raised in 
Egypt, it had more beauty, because of its harmonious 
proportions, perfect symmetry, and exquisite work¬ 
manship. The Parthenon is now a ruin. Many of 
the wonderful sculptures which once decorated the 
exterior have survived, however, and may be viewed 
to-day in the British Museum at London. 

Up against a corner of the Acropolis, the Athenians 
built an open-air theater, where performances took 
place in midwinter and spring at the festivals of the 
god Dionysus. A Greek play would seem strange 
enough to us; there was no elaborate scenery, no raised 
stage, until late Roman times, and little lively action. 
The actors, who were all men, never numbered more 
than three or four. They wore elaborate costumes 
and grotesque masks. The narrative was mainly car¬ 
ried on in song by the chorus, which met with the 
actors in the dancing ring, or orchestra. The theater 
held an important part in the life of Athens and, 
indeed, of all Greek cities. It formed a partial sub¬ 
stitute for our pulpit and press, for it dealt either 


92 


Greece 


with religious and moral themes or with leading per¬ 
sonages and questions of the day. The tragedies and 
comedies produced by Athenian playwrights origi¬ 
nated a new type of literature—the drama. 

The playwrights composed in verse, but there were 
also Athenians who learned to write in prose. The 
first great prose writer of Greece, or of any other 
country, was the “father of history,” Herodotus. 
Though born in Asia Minor, he passed much of his 
life at Athens, mingling in its brilliant society and 
coming under the influences, literary and artistic, 
which that city afforded. Herodotus wrote about the 
I ersian wars, but also wove into his narrative accounts 
of the Egyptians, Babylonians, and other Oriental 
peoples. His work is one of our chief sources of 
information for ancient history. Greek prose was 

further developed by the orators, who flourished in 
democratic Athens. 

The Greeks really founded philosophy, which 
means an intelligent effort to probe the mysteries of 
existence and human nature. No one did more in this 
direction than the Athenian, Socrates. A true “lover 
of wisdom” and one of the greatest teachers of any 

, . | ^ never wrote any¬ 

thing; he taught only by conversation with any one 
willing to discuss moral or religious subjects. When 
an old man, Socrates was convicted of impiety and 
of corrupting the youth of Athens by his doctrines. 
He suffered death, in consequence, but his philosophy 
id not perish. It found an exponent in the Athenian 
Blato, whose writings, known as Dialogues, took the 
form oi question and answer that Socrates had used 
Blatos works were profound in thought and 
admirable in style. They have continued to influence 



93 


Decline of the Greek City-States 

philosophic speculation to our own day. The cele¬ 
brated philosopher, Aristotle, was not a native of 
Athens, but he lived and taught for many years in 
that city. Aristotle took all knowledge for his prov¬ 
ince. His treatises on ethics, politics, and other 
subjects were reverently studied for centuries and are 
still used in modern universities. 

What the Greeks, and especially the Athenians, 
originated in art, literature, oratory, and philosophy 
still abides in the world. Much of it is unexcelled; 
all of it is an inspiration. There is no exaggeration, 
consequently, in the proud words which the states¬ 
man, Pericles, applied to Athens in the fifth century 
B. C. : “Our city is equally admirable in peace and in 
war. We are lovers of the beautiful, yet simple in 
our tastes, and we cultivate the mind without loss of 
manliness. Wealth we employ, not for talk and 
ostentation, but when there is real use for it. To 
acknowledge poverty with us is no disgrace; the true 
disgrace is in doing nothing to avoid it. An Athenian 
citizen does not neglect the state because he takes care 
of his own household; and even those of us who are 
engaged in business have a very fair idea of politics. 
We alone regard a man who shows no interest in 
public affairs, not as a harmless, but as a useless, 

character.In short, Athens is the school of 

Hellas” (Thucydides, ii, 39-41). 

Decline of the Greek City-States, 431-338 b.c. 

The patriotic Greeks, during the Persian wars, had 
achieved a temporary union and had fought valiantly, 
successfully, in a common cause. When all danger 
from Persia was removed, it became impossible to 
continue a working system of federation. The old 



94 


Greece 


antagonisms between rival communities arose again 
in full vigor. The Greek people, whose unity of 
blood, language, religion, and customs should have 
welded them into one nation, continued to be divided 
into independent and often hostile city-states. 

The history of Greece, after the Persian wars, is 
therefore a record of almost ceaseless conflict. In 
43 1 B. C. the fierce and exhausting Peloponnesian War 
broke out between Athens and Sparta, with their 
allies and dependencies. After ten years of fighting 
without a decisive result, both sides grew weary of 
the stiuggle and made peace. Athens, instead of 
husbanding her resources for another contest with 
Sparta, then tried to conquer Syracuse, the largest 
Greek city in Sicily. The failure of the Sicilian expe¬ 
dition so weakened Athens that Sparta felt encour¬ 
aged to renew the Peloponnesian War, this time with 
the financial help of Persia, who was always ready 
to subsidize the Greeks in fighting one another. The 
Peloponnesian War ended in 404 B. C. with the com¬ 
plete triumph of Sparta. That city played the 
imperial role for a few years, until her harsh military 
rule goaded Thebes into revolt. By defeating Sparta, 
Thebes became the chief power in Greece. Athens 
and Sparta, however, joined forces to make head¬ 
way against Theban dominion, and this, too, went 
down bloodily on the field of battle. By the middle 
of the fourth century B. c. it had became evident that 

no single city-state was strong enough or wise enough 
to rule Greece. 

A new influence now began to be felt in the Greek 
world —the influence of Macedonia. Its people 
were an offshoot of those northern invaders who had 
entered the Balkan Peninsula before the dawn of 


95 


Decline of the Greek City-States 

history. They were thus Greek in both blood and 
language, but less civilized than their kinsmen of 
central and southern Greece. Macedonia, however, 
formed a territorial state under a single ruler, in 
contrast to the disunited city-states of the other 
Greeks. 

Philip II, one of the most remarkable men of 
antiquity, became king of Macedonia in 359 b. c. He 
was not a stranger to Greece. Part of his boyhood 
had been passed as a hostage at Thebes, where he 
learned the art of war as the Greeks had perfected it, 
and also gained an insight into Greek politics. The 
distracted condition of Greece offered Philip an 
opportunity to secure for Macedonia the position 
of supremacy which neither Athens, Sparta, nor 
Thebes had held for long. He seized the 
opportunity. 

Philip created a permanent or standing army of 
professional soldiers and improved their methods of 
fighting. Hitherto, battles had been mainly between 
massed bodies of infantry, forming a phalanx. Philip 
retained the phalanx, only he deepened it and gave to 
the rear men longer spears. The business of the 
phalanx was to keep the front of the opposing army 
engaged, while horsemen rode into the enemy’s flanks. 
This reliance on masses of cavalry to win a victory 
was something new in warfare. Another novel fea¬ 
ture consisted in the use on the battlefield of 
catapults, a kind of artillery able to throw darts and 
huge stones for three hundred yards into the enemy’s 
ranks. All these different arms working together 
made a war machine which was the most formidable 
in the ancient world until the days of the Roman 
legion. 


96 


Greece 



I hilip commanded a fine army; he ruled with 
absolute sway a territory larger than any city-state* 
and he himself possessed a genius for both war and 
diplomacy. With such advantages the Macedonian 
mg entered upon the subjugation of disunited 
Ureece. His first important success was won in west¬ 
ern Thrace. Here he founded the city of Philippi 
and secured some rich gold mines, the income from 
which enabled him to keep his soldiers always under 
arms and to fit out a fleet. Philip next made Macedo¬ 
nia a maritime state by annexing the Greek cities on 
k Peninsula of Chalcidice. He also appeared in 
hessaly, occupied its principal fortresses, and 













































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Decline of the Greek City-States 97 

brought the frontier of Macedonia as far south as the 
pass of Thermopylae. 

Philip’s conquests excited mixed feelings at Athens, 
Thebes, and Sparta. He had many influential friends 
in these cities, some paid agents, but others honest 
men who favored Macedonian headship as the only 
means of uniting Greece. Those opposed to Philip 
found their foremost representative in the famous 
Athenian orator, Demosthenes. His patriotic imagi¬ 
nation had been fired by the great deeds which free 
Greeks once accomplished against Persia. Athens he 
loved with passionate devotion, and Athens, he urged, 
should become the leader of Greece in a second war 
for independence. 

The stirring appeals of Demosthenes met little 
response, until Philip entered central Greece at the 
head of his army. Athens, Thebes, and some Pelo¬ 
ponnesian states then formed a defensive alliance 
against him. The decisive battle took place at Chxr- 
onea, in Boeotia. On that fatal field the well-drilled 
and seasoned troops of Macedonia, led by a master 
of the art of war, overcame the citizen-soldiers of 
Greece. The victory made Philip master of all the 
Greek states, except Sparta, which still preserved her 
liberty. It was the victory of an absolute monarchy 
over free, self-governing commonwealths. The city- 
states had had their day. Never again did they 
become first-rate powers in history. 

Philip’s restless energy now drove him forward to 
the next step in his ambitious program. He deter¬ 
mined to carry out the plans, long cherished by the 
Greeks, for the conquest of Asia Minor and perhaps 
even of Persia. A congress of the Greek states, which 
met at Corinth, voted to supply ships and soldiers for 


98 


Greece 


the undertaking and placed Philip in command of 
the Graeco-Macedonian army. But Philip did not 
lead it into Asia. Less than two years after Chaeronea 
he was struck down by an assassin, and the scepter 
passed to his son, Alexander. 

Alexander the Great, and the Conquest of 

Persia, 336-323 b. c. 

Alexander became king of Macedonia when only 
twenty years old. He had his father's vigorous body, 
keen mind, and resolute will. His mother, a proud, 
ambitious woman, told him that the blood of Achilles 
ran in his veins, and bade him emulate the deeds of 
that Greek hero. We know that he learned the Iliad 
by heart and always carried a copy of it on his cam¬ 
paigns. The youthful Alexander developed into a 
splendid athlete, skillful in all the sports of his rough- 
riding companions and trained in every warlike exer¬ 
cise. But Alexander was also well educated. He had 
Aristotle, the most learned man in Greece, as his tutor. 
The influence of that philosopher, in inspiring him 
with an admiration for Greek civilization, remained 
with him throughout life. 

The situation which Alexander faced on his acces¬ 
sion might well have dismayed a less dauntless spirit. 
Philip had not lived long enough to unite firmly his 
dominions; his unexpected death proved the signal 
for uprisings against Macedonia. The Thracian 
tribes revolted, and the Greeks made ready to answer 
the call of Demosthenes to arms. But Alexander 
soon set his kingdom in order. After crushing the 
Thracians, he descended on Greece and besieged 
Thebes. The city was captured and destroyed; its 


Alexander the Great 


99 


inhabitants were sold into slavery. The fate of 
Thebes induced the other states to submit without 
further resistance. 

With Greece pacified, Alexander could proceed to 
the invasion of Persia. The Persian Empire had 
remained almost intact since the time of Darius the 
Great. It was a huge, loosely knit collection of many 
different peoples, whose sole bond of union consisted 
in their allegiance to the Great King. Its resources 
in men and wealth were enormous. However impos¬ 
ing on the outside, events proved that it could offer 
no effective resistance to a Graeco-Macedonian army. 
With not more than fifty thousand soldiers, Alexan¬ 
der destroyed an empire before which for two centu¬ 
ries the Near East had bowed the knee. 

Alexander entered Asia Minor near the plain of 
Troy, visited this site made famous by his legendary 
ancestor, Achilles, overthrew with little difficulty 
such troops as opposed him, and then marched south¬ 
ward, capturing the Greek cities on the way. West¬ 
ern Asia Minor was soon freed of Persian control. 
Meanwhile, Darius III, the king of Persia, had 
assembled a large army and had advanced to the 
narrow plain of Issus, between the Syrian mountains 
and the Mediterranean. In such cramped quarters 
superiority in numbers counted for nothing. Alexan¬ 
der perceived this, and struck with all his force. 
After a stubborn resistance the Persians gave way, 
turned, and fled. The battle now became a massacre, 
and only the approach of night stayed the swords of 
the victorious Macedonians. 

Alexander’s next step was the siege of Tyre. This 
Phoenician city, the headquarters of Persia’s naval 
power, lay on an island half a mile from the shore. 



IOO 


Greece 


Alexander could only approach it by building a mole, 
or causeway, between the shore and the island. 
Battering rams then breached the walls, the Mace¬ 
donians poured in, and Tyre fell by storm. The great 
emporium of the Near East became a heap of ruins. 

From Tyre Alexander led his army through Pales¬ 
tine into Egypt. The Persian officials there offered 
little resistance, and the Egyptians themselves wel¬ 
comed Alexander as a deliverer. He entered Mem¬ 
phis in triumph and then sailed down the Nile to its 
western mouth. Here he laid the foundations of 
Alexandria, to replace Tyre as a commercial 
metropolis. 

The time had now come to turn eastward. Fol¬ 
lowing the ancient trade routes, Alexander reached 
the Euphrates, crossed this river and the Tigris, and 
on a bioad plain not far from the ruins of Nineveh 
found himself confronted by the Persian host. Da¬ 
rius held an excellent position and hoped to crush his 
foe by sheer weight of numbers. But nothing could 
stop the Macedonian onset; once more Darius fled 
awa y; and once more the Persians, deserted by their 
king, sought safety in ignominious flight. 

The battle of Arbela decided the fate of the Per¬ 
sian Empire. Alexander had only to gather the 
fruits of victory. Babylon surrendered to him with¬ 
out a stiuggle. Susa, with its enormous treasure, fell 
into the conqueror’s hands. Persepolis, the old Per¬ 
sian capital, was given up to fire and sword. Darius 
himself, as he retreated into the eastern mountains, 
was murdered by his own men. 

The Macedonians had now overrun all the Persian 
territories except distant Iran and India. These 
regions were peopled by warlike tribes of a very 


< c < 


Alexander the Great 


IOI 


different stamp from the effeminate Persians. Alex¬ 
ander might well have been content to leave them 
undisturbed, but the man could never rest while there 
were still conquests to be made. Long marches and 
many battles were required to subdue the tribes about 
the Caspian and the inhabitants of the countries now 
known as Afghanistan and Russian Turkestan. 
Crossing the lofty barrier of the Hindu Kush, Alex¬ 
ander next led his soldiers into the valley of the Indus 
and quickly added northwestern India to the Mace¬ 
donian possessions. He then pressed forward to the 
conquest of the Ganges Valley, but his troops refused 
to go farther. They had had their fill of war. 

Alexander was of too adventurous a disposition to 
return by the way he had come. He built a fleet on 
the Indus and had it accompany the army down the 
river to its mouth. His admiral, Nearchus, was then 
sent with the fleet to explore the Indian Ocean and 
to discover, if possible, a sea route between India and 
the Near East. Alexander himself led the army by 
a long and toilsome march, through desert wastes, to 
Babylon. That city now became the capital of his 
empire. 

But the reign of Alexander was nearly over. In 
323 B. C v while planning expeditions against the 
Arabs, Carthage, and the Italian states, he suddenly 
sickened and died. He was not quite thirty-three 
years of age. 

Alexander was one of the foremost, perhaps the 
first, of the great captains of antiquity. Had he been 
only this, his career would not bulk so large in his¬ 
tory. The truth is, that during an eleven years’ reign 
this remarkable man stamped an enduring impress 
upon much of the ancient world. At his death the 


102 


Greece 


old Greece comes to its end. During the next two 
hundred years we follow, not the development of a 
single people, but the gradual spread of Greek civil¬ 
ization in the Near East. We enter upon the Graeco- 
Oriental or Hellenistic Age. 

The Hellenistic Age 

The empire created by Alexander did not survive 
him. It broke up almost immediately into a number 
of Hellenistic kingdoms, including Macedonia, 
Syria, and Egypt. They were ruled by dynasties 
(Antigonids, Seleucids, Ptolemies) descended from 
Alexander s generals. These three states remained 
independent, though with shifting boundaries, until 
the era of Roman expansion in the Near East. 

Alexander s conquests, and the subsequent estab¬ 
lishment of Hellenistic kingdoms, resulted in the 
disappearance of the barriers which had so long 
separated Europe and Asia. Henceforth the Near 
East lay open to Greek merchants and artisans, Greek 
architects and artists, Greek philosophers, scientists, 
and writers. Everywhere into that huge, inert’ 
unprogressive Orient entered the active and enter¬ 
prising men of Hellas. They brought their Hellenic 
culture with them and became the teachers of those 
whom they had called “barbarians.” 

The Hellenizing of the Orient was begun by Alex¬ 
ander, who founded no less than seventy cities in 
Egypt, in western Asia, in central Asia, and even in 
India. Alexander’s successors continued city-build¬ 
ing on a still more extensive scale. Unlike the old 
Greek city-states, the Hellenistic cities did not enjoy 
independence. I hey formed a part of the kingdom 
in which they lay and paid tribute, or taxes, to its 



1 1 Under Alexander | 1 Allied States | 1 Independent States 

-Route of Alexander 



1 Kingdom of the |-1 Kingdom of the | | Macedonian 

-I Seleucids '-* Ptolemies *- Kingdom 

__Route of Nearchus 































































































The Hellenistic Age 103 

ruler. In appearance, also, the new cities contrasted 
with those of Greece. They had broad streets, well 
paved and sometimes lighted at night, a good water 
supply, and baths, theaters, gymnasiums, and parks. 
Such splendid foundations formed the real backbone 
of Hellenism in the Near East. Their inhabitants, 
whether Greeks or “barbarians,” spoke Greek, read 
Greek, and wrote in Greek. For the first time in his¬ 
tory the largest part of the civilized world had a 
common language. 

Some Hellenistic cities were only garrison posts in 
the heart of remote provinces or along the frontier. 
Many more, such as Alexandria in Egypt, Seleucia in 
Babylonia, Antioch in Syria, and Rhodes on the 
island of that name, were thriving business centers, 
through which Asiatic products, even those of distant 
India and China, reached Greece. Kings, nobles, 
and rich men now began to build palaces, to keep up 
large households with many servants, and to possess 
fine furniture, carpets, tapestries, gold and silver ves¬ 
sels, and beautiful works of art. The standard of 
living was thus raised by the introduction of luxuries 
to which the old Greeks had been strangers. 

Greece and the Orient exchanged ideas as well as 
commodities. What the Greeks had accomplished in 
art, literature, philosophy, and science became famil¬ 
iar to the Egyptians, Babylonians, and other Oriental 
peoples. They, in turn, introduced the Greeks to 
some of their achievements in the realm of thought. 

The fusion of East and West went on most 
thoroughly at Alexandria in Egypt. It was the fore¬ 
most Hellenistic center, because of its unrivaled site 
for commerce with Africa, Asia, and Europe. The 
inhabitants included not only Egyptians, Greeks, and 



104 


Greece 



The W orld According to Ptolemy 


































































































































































































































































































































































































































The Hellenistic Age 105 

Macedonians, but also Jews, Syrians, Babylonians, 
and other Orientals. The population increased rap¬ 
idly, and by the time of Christ Alexandria ranked in 
size next to imperial Rome. 

The Macedonian rulers of Egypt made Alexan¬ 
dria their capital and did everything to adorn it with 
imposing public buildings and masterpieces of Greek 
art. Learning flourished at Alexandria. The city 
possessed in the royal Museum, or Temple of the 
Muses, a genuine university, with lecture halls, 
botanical and zoological gardens, an astronomical 
observatory, and a great library. The collection of 
books, in the form of papyrus or parchment (sheep¬ 
skin) manuscripts, finally amounted to over five hun¬ 
dred thousand rolls, or almost everything that had 
been written in antiquity. The more important 
works were carefully edited by Alexandrian scholars, 
thus supplying standard editions of the classics for 
other ancient libraries. The learned men at Alexan¬ 
dria also translated into Greek various productions 
of Oriental literature, including the Hebrew Old 
Testament. Science likewise flourished in Alexan¬ 
dria, for the professors, who lived in the Museum at 
public expense, had the quiet and leisure so necessary 
for research. Much progress took place at this time 
in mathematics, astronomy, physics, geography, anat¬ 
omy, medicine, and other branches of knowledge. 
The Greeks in their investigations must have been 
greatly helped by the scientific lore of old Egypt and 
Babylonia, which was now disclosed to the world at 
large. Graeco-Oriental science, in turn, passed over 
to the Romans, and later became known to the Mos¬ 
lem and Christian peoples of the Middle Ages. 

During the period following Alexander the Greek 


io6 


Greece 


city-states began to realize that the freedom they 
prized so much could only be secured by a close 
union. They now formed the iEtolian League in 
central Greece and the Achaean League in the Pelo¬ 
ponnesus. The latter was the more important. Its 
business lay in the hands of an assembly, or congress, 
where each city, 
whether large or 
small, had one 
vote. The assem¬ 
bly, meeting twice 
a year, chose a 
general, or presi¬ 
dent, levied taxes, 
raised armies, and 
conducted all for¬ 
eign affairs. The 
cities, in local 
matters, continued 
to enjoy their old 
i n d e p e ndence. 

This organization The ^Etolian and Achaean Leagues (about 
shows t h a t t h e 229 b. c.) 



Achaean League was more than a mere alliance of 
city-states. It formed the first genuine federation 
that the world had ever seen, and its example was 
repeatedly cited by the American statesmen who 
helped fiame our Constitution. But the attempt to 
unify Greece came too late. Sparta refused to enter 
the Achaean League, and Athens failed to join the 
toll an League. Without these two powerful states, 
neither association could achieve lasting success. 

The Greeks who emigrated in such numbers to 
Egypt and western Asia lost citizenship at Athens, 






























The Hellenistic Age 107 

Sparta, or Thebes and formed subjects of the Ptole¬ 
mies or of the Seleucids. They surrendered local 
attachments and prejudices, which had so long 
divided them, to be “cosmopolitans,” or citizens of 
the world. They likewise lost old feelings of antago¬ 
nism toward non-Greeks. Henceforth the distinction 
between Greek and Barbarian gradually faded away, 
and mankind became ever more unified in sympa¬ 
thies and aspirations. This Graeco-Oriental world of 
city-states, federations, and kingdoms about the east¬ 
ern Mediterranean was now to come in contact with 
the great power which had been arising in the western 
Mediterranean—Rome. 



CHAPTER IV 

ROME 

Italian Peoples 

The Italian Peninsula is long and narrow. It 
leaches nearly seven hundred miles from the Alps 
to the sea, but measures only about one hundred miles 
across, except in the Po Valley. The shape of Italy 
is determined by the course of the Apennines. Start- 
ing from the Alpine chain at the Gulf of Genoa, 
the\ c 1 oss the peninsula in an easterly direction 
almost to the Adriatic. Then they turn sharply to 
the southeast and parallel the coast for a considerable 
distance. The plains of central Italy are all on the 
western slope of the mountains. In southern Italy 
the Apennines swerve to the southwest and penetrate 
the “toe” of the peninsula. 

Geographical conditions exerted the same pro¬ 
found intluence on Italian history as on that of 
Gieece. In the first place, Italy is not cut up by a 
tangle of mountains into many small districts. It 
was therefore easier for the Italians than for the 
Greeks to establish one large and united state. In 
the second place, Italy has comparatively few good 
harbors, but possesses upland pastures and rich low¬ 
land plains. The Italian peoples consequently devel¬ 
oped cattle raising and agriculture much earlier than 
commerce. _ And in the third place, the location of 
Italy, with its best harbors and most numerous islands 
on the western side, for a long time brought the 

108 


Italian Peoples 


109 


peninsula into closer relations with the western 
islands and the coasts of Gaul, Spain, and North 
Africa than with the countries of the eastern Medi¬ 
terranean. If Greece faced the civilized East, Italy 
fronted the barbarous West. 

The first civilization in Italy was introduced 



DISTRIBUTION 

OF THE 

EARLY INHABITANTS 

OF 

ITALY 


there by Etruscans from the Aegean region. Per¬ 
haps as early as 1000 B. C., they landed on the western 
side of the peninsula, pushed back the earlier inhab¬ 
itants, and founded a strong power in the region 
called after them Etruria (modern Tuscany). 1 he 
Etruscan dominions in time extended along the coast 
from the Bay of Naples to the Gulf of Genoa and 



















































IIO 


Rome 


inland to the Po Valley as far as the Alps. The 
Etruscans are a mysterious people. No one has been 
able to read their language. It is quite unlike any 
Indo-European tongue, though the words are written 
in an alphabet borrowed from Greek settlers in Italy. 
Many other cultural influences reached the Etrus¬ 
cans from abroad. Babylonia gave to them the prin¬ 
ciple of the round arch and the practice of divination. 
Etruscan graves contain Egyptian seals marked with 
hieroglyphs, and vases bearing Greek designs. The 
Etruscans were skillful workers in bronze, iron, and 
gold. They built cities with massive walls, arched 
gates, paved streets, and underground drains. A 

great pait of Etruscan civilization was ultimately 
absorbed in that of Rome. 

The Etruscans were followed by the Greeks. 
Greek colonies began to be planted in southern Italy 
after the middle of the eighth century B. C. A glance 
at the map shows that these were all on or near the 
sea, from the Gulf of Taranto to Campania. North 
of the “heel” of Italy extends an almost harborless 
coast, where nothing tempted the Greeks to settle 
North of Campania, again, they found the good har¬ 
bors already occupied by the Etruscans. The Greeks 
in consequence, never penetrated deeply into Italy 
Room was left for the native Italians, under the lead¬ 
ership of Rome, to build up their own power in the 
peninsula. 

Barbarous peoples of the Mediterranean racial 
type occupied Italy, as well as Greece, during Neo- 
hthic times. After them came invaders apparently 
of the Baltic (Nordic) racial type, who spoke an 
mdo-European language closely related both to 
Greek and to the Celtic tongues of western Europe. 


The Romans 


111 


They entered the Italian Peninsula through the 
numerous Alpine passes, probably not long after the 
Greeks had found a way into the Balkan Peninsula. 
Wave after wave of these northerners flowed south¬ 
ward, until the greater part of Italy came into their 
possession. We must assume that the invaders, hav¬ 
ing overcome all armed opposition, mingled more or 
less with the earlier inhabitants of Italy. There is 
every reason to believe that the historic Italians, like 
the historic Greeks, were a mixed people. 

The Italians who settled in the central, eastern, 
and southern parts of the peninsula were highlanders. 
They formed many tribes, including the Umbrians 
and the Samnites. With the Samnites Rome was one 
day to fight a duel for the supremacy of Italy. 

The western Italians, or Latins, were lowlanders. 
They dwelt in Latium, originally only the “flat land” 
extending south of the Tiber River between the 
mountains and the sea. The Latin plain is about 
thirty by forty miles in size. Its soil, though not very 
productive, can nevertheless support a considerable 
population devoted to herding and farming. The 
Latins, as they increased in number, gave up tribal 
life and established little city-states, like those of 
Greece. The need of defense against their Etruscan 
neighbors across the Tiber and the Italian tribes in 
the near-by mountains bound them together. At a 
very early period they united in the Latin League. 
The chief city in this league was Rome. 

The Romans 

Rome began as a Latin settlement on the Palatine 
Mount. It was the central eminence in a group of 
low hills just south of the Tiber and about fourteen 


I 12 


Rome 


miles from its ancient mouth. Shallow water and an 
island made the river easily fordable at this point for 
Latins and Etruscans and facilitated intercourse 
between them. Villages also arose on the neighbor¬ 
ing mounts, and these in time combined with the 
Palatine community. Rome thus became the City 
of the Seven Hills. 

Rome, from the start, owed much to a fortunate 
location. The city was easy to defend. It lay far 
enough from the sea to be safe from sudden raids by 
pirates, and it possessed in the seven hills a natural 
fortress. The city was also well placed for commerce 
on the only navigable stream in Italy. Finally Rome 
was almost in the center of Italy, a position from 
which its warlike inhabitants could most easily 
advance to the conquest of the peninsula. 

V e cannot trace in detail the development of early 
Rome. The accounts which have reached us are a 
tissue of legends dealing with Romulus, the supposed 
founder of the city, and the six kings who followed 
him. What seems certain is that the Roman city- 
state very soon fell under the sway of the Etruscans 
who governed it for perhaps two centuries or more.’ 

tiuscan tyranny at length provoked a successful 
uprising, and Rome became a republic (about 509 

While the legends contain little history, they do 
tell us a good deal about the customs, beliefs, morals 
and everyday life of the early Romans. The family’ 
in a very real sense, formed the unit of Roman society.’ 

Its most marked feature was the unlimited authority 
of the father. His wife had no legal rights: he could 
sell her into slavery or divorce her at will. Never¬ 
theless, no ancient people honored women more 


The Romans 


ll 3 

highly than did the Romans. The wife was the mis¬ 
tress of the home, as the husband was its master. She 
was not confined, as was an Athenian wife, to a nar¬ 
row round of duties within the house. Though her 
education did not proceed far, we often find the 
Roman matron aiding her husband both in politics 
and in business. Women, as well as men, made Rome 
great among the nations. Over his sons and his un¬ 
married daughters the Roman father ruled as 
supreme as over his wife. He brought up his chil¬ 
dren to be sober, silent, modest in their bearing, and, 
above all, obedient. Their misdeeds he might punish 
with banishment, slavery, or even death. As head of 
the family, he could claim all their earnings; every¬ 
thing they had was his. The father’s great authority 
ceased only with his death. Then his sons, in turn, 
became lords over their families. 

The Romans, as well as the Greeks and other 
ancient peoples, were ancestor worshipers. The dead 
received daily offerings of food and wine and special 
veneration on those festival days when their spirits, 
it was supposed, came from the underworld to visit 
the living. The worship of ancestors immensely 
strengthened the father’s authority, for it made him 
the chief priest of the household. It also made mar¬ 
riage a sacred duty, so that a man might have children 
to accord him and his forefathers all honors after 
death. This religion of the family endured with little 
change throughout Roman history, lingering in many 
households as a pious rite long after the triumph of 

Christianity over paganism. 

The Romans worshiped various gods connected 

with their lives as shepherds, farmers, traders, and 
warriors. The chief divinity was Jupiter, who luled 


Rome 


"4 

the heavens and sent rain and sunshine to nourish the 
crops. The war god Mars reflected the military side 
of Roman life. His sacred animal was the fierce 
wolf; his symbols were spears and shields; his altar 
was the Campus Martius (Field of Mars) outside 
the city walls, where the army assembled in battle 
array. March, the first month of the old Roman 
year, was named in his honor. Other important 
deities were Mercury, who protected traders, Ceres 
a vegetation goddess (compare our English word 
cereal ) and Vesta, who kept watch over the sacred 
re ever blazing in the Forum, or market-place, of 
Rome. Still other divinities were borrowed from the 
reeks, together with many Greek myths. This 
religion of the state did not promise rewards or 
punishments in a future world. It dealt with the 
present life. Just as the family was bound together 
by the tie of common worship, so all the citizens were 
united m common reverence for the gods who 
guarded and guided the state. 

Agriculture was the chief occupation of the early 
Romany When our forefathers,” said an ancient 
writer, would praise a worthy man, they praised 
him as a good farmer and a good landlord; and thev 
believed that praise could go no further.” Cattle- 
ree ing also must have been an important occupa- 
ion, since prices were originally estimated in oxen 
and sheep No great inequalities of wealth could 
exist in such a community of peasants. Few citizens 
were very rich; few were very poor. The members 
o each household made their own clothing from flax 
or wool, and fashioned out of wood and clay what 
utensils were needed for their simple life. The Ion? 
use of copper for money indicates that gold and sil 


The Roman City-State 


1 15 


ver were rare among the early Romans, and that 
luxury was almost unknown. 

These Romans were a manly breed, abstemious in 
food and drink, iron-willed, vigorous, and strong. 
Deep down in their hearts was the proud conviction 
that Rome should rule over her neighbors. For this 
they freely shed their blood; for this they bore hard¬ 
ship, however severe, without complaint. Before 
everything else, they were dutiful citizens and true 
patriots. Such were the sturdy men who formed the 
backbone of the Roman state. Their character has 
set its mark on history for all time. 

The Roman City-State 

Early Rome formed a city-state with a threefold 
government, as in Homeric Greece. The king had 
wide powers: he was commander-in-chief, supreme 
judge, and head of the state religion. A council of 
elders (Latin, senes “old men”) made up the Senate, 
which assisted the king in government. The popular 
assembly, whenever summoned by the king, voted on 
important questions. 

After monarchy disappeared at Rome, two magis¬ 
trates, named consuls, took the king’s place in 
government. The consuls enjoyed equal honor and 
authority. Unless both agreed, nothing could be 
done. They thus served as a check upon each other, 
as was the case with the two Spartan kings. 

When grave danger threatened the state and unity 
of action seemed imperative, the Romans sometimes 
appointed a dictator. The consuls relinquished their 
authority to him and the people put theii property 
and lives entirely at his disposal. The dictator s term 
of office might not exceed six months, but during this 


Rome 


116 


time he had all the power formerly wielded by the 
kings. 

The Roman city-state seems to have been divided, 
during the regal age, between an aristocracy and a 
commons. The nobles were called patricians and the 
common people, plebeians. The patricians occupied 
a piivileged position, since they alone sat in the Sen¬ 
ate and served as magistrates, judges, and priests. 
In fact, they controlled society, and the plebeians 
found themselves excluded from much of the polit¬ 
ical, legal, and religious life of Rome. 

The oppressive sway of the patricians resulted in 
gicat unrest at Rome, and after the establishment of 
the republic the plebeians began to agitate for 
reforms. They soon compelled the patricians to 
allow them to have officers of their own, called 
tribunes, as a means of protection. Any tribune could 
veto, that is, foibid, the act of a magistrate which 
seemed to bear harshly on a citizen. There were ten 
tribunes, elected annually by the plebeians. 

Next followed a struggle on the part of the plebe¬ 
ians for legal equality with the patricians. The 
omans hitherto had had simply unwritten customs 
which were interpreted by patrician judges. The 
plebeians now demanded that the customs be set down 
in writing—be made laws—so that every one might 
know them and secure justice in the courts. A com¬ 
mission was finally appointed to prepare a code. 
The laws were engraved on twelve bronze tablets and 
set up in the Forum of Rome. A few sentences from 
them have come down to us in rude, unpolished 

atin. They mark the beginning of Rome’s legal 
system. 

It would take too long to tell how the plebeians 


The Roman City-State 117 

broke down the patrician monopoly of office holding. 
The result was that eventually they became eligible 
to the consulships and other magistracies, to seats in 
the Senate, and even to the priesthoods. Henceforth 
all citizens, whether patricians or plebeians, enjoyed 
the same rights at Rome. 

The Roman city-state called itself a republic— 
respublica —“a thing of the people.” The citizens in 
their assemblies made the laws, elected public offi¬ 
cials, and decided questions of war and peace. But 
Rome was less democratic than Athens. The citizens 
could not frame, criticize, or amend public measures; 
they could only vote “yes” or “no” to proposals made 
to them by a magistrate. All this afforded a sharp 
contrast to the vigorous debating which went on in 
the Athenian popular assembly. 

The authority of the magistrates, including both 
consuls and tribunes, was much limited by the Senate. 
It contained about three hundred members, who held 
office for life. Vacancies in it were filled, as a rule, 
by persons who had previously held one of the higher 
magistracies. There sat in the Senate every man who, 
as statesman, general, or diplomatist, had served his 
country well. All weighty matters came before this 
august body. It conducted war, received ambassa¬ 
dors from foreign countries, made alliances, admin¬ 
istered conquered territories, and, in short, formed 
the real governing body of the republic. The Senate 
proved not unworthy of its high position. During the 
centuries iwhen Rome was winning dominion over 
Italy and throughout the Mediterranean basin, the 
Senate conducted public affairs with foresight, 
energy, and success. An admiring foreigner once 
called it “an assembly of kings.” 



118 


Rome 


Expansion of Rome over Italy, 509(F) -264 B. C. 

The first centuries of the republic were filled with 
warfare against the Etruscans on the north and the 
ta lan tribes of the Apennines. About 390 B. c. the 
republic came near to destruction, as a result of an 
invasion of the Gauls. These barbarians, a Celtic¬ 
speaking people, poured through the Alpine passes 
conquered the Etruscan settlements in the Po Valiev’ 
and then fell upon the Romans. A Roman army was 
annihilated and Rome itself, except the fortress on 
the Capitol.ne Mount, was captured and burned. 

retnrr S ’ t0 the story, were induced to 

eturn to northern Italy by the payment of a heavy 

ransom in gold. Though they made subsequent raids 
from f Sain Feached Rome ’ which soon rose 

af ?“ theV 35 n CS Str ° nger ^ eVer ' Half a centur y 

after the Gallic invasion, she was able to subdue her 
rmer allies the Latins, and to destroy their league 

t h;s e t La R War ’ aS U 18 calIed > end ed in 338 B. c. % 
h s time Rome ruled in Latium and southern Etru¬ 
ria and had begun to extend her sway over Campania. 

e expansion of the Romans southward over the 
fertile Campanian plain soon led to wars with the 
Sammtes, who coveted the same region. In numbers 

a N rfnf” ,hC tW0 ^ »'* well’ 

Ze": k °' e Ron " * ain ' d “free h»d. S Th 

cZal l alv T,'“ WarS V nd h ' r s ' ,prem ' * n 

central italy. A few years later she annexed the 
g”) ^ CitkS ^ S ° Uthem Ital y (Magna 

Rome was now the undisputed mistress of Italv 
rom the strait of Messina northward to the Arno 

( nUs} RlVer ‘ Etrusca ns and Greeks, together with 


Expansion of Rome over Italy 


Latins, Samnites, and other Italian peoples, acknowl¬ 
edged her sway. The central city of the peninsula 
thus became the center of a united Italy. It should 
be noticed, however, that as yet Rome ruled only the 
central and southern parts of what is the modern 
kingdom of Italy. The Gauls held the Po Valley, 
while most of Sicily and Sardinia was controlled by 
the Carthaginians. 

As Rome extended her rule in Italy, she bestowed 
upon the conquered peoples citizenship. It formed 
a great gift, for a Roman citizen enjoyed many priv¬ 
ileges. He could hold and exchange property under 
the protection of Roman law; could contract a valid 
marriage which made his children themselves citi¬ 
zens; and could vote in the popular assemblies at 
Rome and hold public office there. At the period 
we have reached, Italy contained about three hundred 
thousand such citizens, all of them feeling a common 
interest in the welfare of Rome. This extension of 
the citizenship to those who formerly had been ene¬ 
mies was something quite novel in history, and it was 
the great secret of Rome’s success as a governing 
power. 

The Italian peoples who failed to receive citizen¬ 
ship at this time were not treated as complete subjects, 
but as “friends and allies” of the Romans. They lost 
the right of declaring war on one another, of making 
treaties, and of coining money. Rome otherwise 
allowed them to govern themselves, never calling on 
them for tribute, and only requiring that they should 
furnish soldiers for the Roman army in time of war. 
These allies occupied a large part of the Italian 
Peninsula. 

The Romans established what were called Latin 


I 20 


Rome 


colonies in various parts of Italy. The colonies con¬ 
sisted usually of veteran soldiers or poor plebeians, 
who wanted farms of their own. Being offshoots of 
Rome, the Latin colonies naturally remained faithful 
to her interests. 

The colonies were united with one another and 
with Rome by an extensive system of roads. The 
first great road, known as the Appian Way, was car¬ 
ried as far as Capua during the period of the Samnite 
wars and afterward to Brindisi ( Brundusium ) on the 
Adriatic, whence travelers embarked for Greece. 
Other trunk lines were soon built in Italy, and from 
them a network of smaller highways penetrated every 
part of the peninsula. Roman roads, like those of the 
Persians, were intended to facilitate the rapid dis¬ 
patch of troops, supplies, and official messages into 
every corner of Italy. Being free to the public, they 
also became avenues of trade and travel and so helped 
to bring the Italian peoples into close touch with 
Rome. 

Rome thus began in Italy the process of Romaniza- 
tion which she was to extend later to Sicily, Spain, 
Gaul, and Britain. She began to make all Italians 
like herself in blood, language, religion, and customs. 
More and more they came to regard themselves as 
one people—a civilized people who spoke Latin, as 
contrasted with the barbarous, Celtic-speaking Gauls. 

Expansion of Rome beyond Italy, 264-133 B. C. 

Rome had scarcely finished the conquest of Italy 
before she became involved in a life-and-death strug¬ 
gle with the city of Carthage. This Phoenician 
colony occupied an admirable site, for it bordered on 
rich farming land and had the largest harbor of 


i 
















































































































Expansion of Rome beyond Italy 121 

North Africa. The Carthaginians gradually extend¬ 
ed their control over the adjacent coast, eastward as 
far as the Greek city of Cyrene and westward to the 
Atlantic. Carthaginian settlements also lined the 
shores of Sicily, Sardinia, Corsica, the Balearic 
Islands, and southern Spain. The western basin of 
the Mediterranean formed, to a large extent, a Car¬ 
thaginian lake. 

The Phoenician founders of Carthage kept their 
own (Semitic) language, customs, and beliefs and did 
not mingle with the native African peoples. The 
Carthaginian government was in form republican, 
with two elective magistrates somewhat resembling 
Roman consuls. The real power lay, however, with 
a group of merchant nobles, forming a council. It 
was a government by capitalists, who cared very little 
for the welfare of the poor freemen and slaves over 
whom they ruled. The wealth of Catrthage enabled 
her to raise armies of mercenary soldiers and to build 
warships which in size, number, and equipment sur¬ 
passed those of any other Mediterranean state. Mis¬ 
tress of a wide realm, strong both by land and sea, 
Carthage was now to prove herself Rome’s most 
dangerous foe. 

The First Punic War was a contest for Sicily. The 
Carthaginians wished to extend their rule over all 
that island, which from its situation seems to belong 
almost as much to Africa as to Italy. But Rome, now 
supreme in the Italian Peninsula, also cast envious 
eyes on Sicily. She believed, too, that the conquest 
of Sicily by the Carthaginians would soon be fol¬ 
lowed by their invasion of southern Italy. The fear 
for her possessions, as well as the desire to obtain new 
ones, led Rome to fling down the gage of battle. The 


122 


Rome 


war lasted nearly twenty-four years. It was fought 
mainly on the sea. The Carthaginians at the start 
had things all their own way, but with characteristic 
energy the Romans built fleet after fleet and at length 
won a complete victory over the enemy. The treaty 
of peace ousted the Carthaginians from Sicily. That 
island now became the first Roman province. 



The peace amounted to no more than an armed 
truce. The decisive conflict, which should determine 
whether Rome or Carthage was to rule the western 
Mediterranean, had yet to come. Before it came, 
Rome strengthened her military position by seizing 
Sardinia and Corsica, in spite of Carthaginian pro¬ 
tests against this unwarranted action, and by conquer¬ 
ing Cisalpine Gaul (the Po Valley). The Roman 
power now extended over northern Italy to the foot 














































Expansion of Rome beyond Italy 123 

of the Alps. Carthage, meanwhile, created a new em¬ 
pire in Spain, as far north as the Ebro River. Spain 
at this time was a rich, though undeveloped, country. 
The produce of its silver mines filled the Carthagin¬ 
ian treasury, and its hardy tribes, the descendants of 
Neolithic Europeans, made excellent soldiers for the 
Carthaginian army. Carthage thus had both means 
and men for another struggle with Rome. 

The war which now ensued has been sometimes 
called the Hannibalic War, because it centered about 
the personality of Hannibal the Carthaginian. As a 
commander, he ranks with Alexander the Great. 
The Macedonian king conquered for the glory of 
conquest; Hannibal, burning with patriotism, sought 
to destroy the power which had humbled his native 
land. He failed; and his failure left Carthage 
weaker than he found her. Few men have possessed a . 
more dazzling genius than Hannibal, but his genius 
was not employed for the lasting good of humanity. 

The Romans planned to conduct the war in Spain 
and Africa at a distance from their own shores. 
Hannibal’s bold movements took them by surprise. 
The young Carthaginian general had determined to 
fight in Italy. Since Roman fleets now controlled the 
western Mediterranean, it was necessary for him to 
lead his army, with its supplies, equipment, horses, 
and war elephants, from Spain through the defiles of 
the Pyrenees, across the wide, deep Rhone, over the 
snow-covered passes of the Alps, and down their 
steeper southern slopes into the valley of the Po. He 
did all this and at length stood on Italian soil. For 
fifteen years thereafter he maintained himself in 
Italy, marching up and down the peninsula, almost 
at will, and inflicting severe defeats upon the Romans. 


124 


Rome 


His hopes were brightest after the battle of Cannae 
(216 B. C.), which resulted in the annihilation of an 
entire Roman army. But Hannibal had no siege 
engines to reduce the Latin colonies that studded 
Italy or to capture Rome itself. His little army 
dwindled away, year by year, and reinforcements 
sent from Spain were caught and destroyed by the 
Romans before they could effect a junction with his 
troops. Meanwhile, the brilliant Roman com¬ 
mander, Publius Scipio, drove the Carthaginians out 
of Spain and invaded Africa. Hannibal was sum¬ 
moned home to face this new adversary. He came, 
and on the field of Zama met his first and only defeat 
(202 B. C.). Scipio, the victor, received the proud 
surname Africanus. 

The treaty of peace following the battle of Zama 
lequired Carthage to cede Spain, surrender all but 
ten of her warships, and pay a heavy indemnity. She 
also agreed not to wage war anywhere without the 
consent of Rome, thus becoming, in effect, a vassal 
state. The long duel was now over. A great nation 
had overcome a great man. While our svmpathies 
naturally go out to the heroic figure of Hannibal, it 
must be clear that Rome s victory in the Second 
Punic War was essential to the continuance of Euro¬ 
pean civilization. The triumph of Carthage in the 
third century, like that of Persia in the fifth cen¬ 
tury, would have resulted in the spread of Oriental 
ideas and customs throughout the western Mediter¬ 
ranean. From this fate Rome saved Europe. 

The last chapter of Carthaginian history remained 
to be written. Though Carthage was no longer a 
dangerous rival, Rome watched anxiously for half 
a century the reviving commerce of the Punic city 


Expansion of Rome beyond Italy 125 

and at length determined to blot it out of existence. 
A Roman army landed in Africa, and the Carthagin¬ 
ians were ordered to remove ten miles from the sea. 
It was a sentence of death to a people who lived 
almost entirely by overseas trade. In despair they 
took up arms again and for three years resisted the 
Romans. The city was finally captured, burned, and 
its site dedicated to the infernal gods. The Cartha¬ 
ginian territories in North Africa henceforth became 
a Roman province. 

The two European countries, Sicily and Spain, 
which Rome had taken from Carthage, presented 
. very different problems to the conqueror. Sicily had 
long been accustomed to foreign masters. Its peace- 
loving inhabitants were as ready to accept Roman 
rule as, in the past, they had accepted the rule of the 
Greeks and Carthaginians. Every year the island 
became more and more a part of Italy and of Rome. 

Spain, on the contrary, gave the Romans some hard 
fighting. The Spanish tribes loved liberty, and in 
their mountain fastnesses kept up a brave struggle 
for independence. It was not until 133 B. C. that 
their resistance was finally broken. Rome continued 
in Spain the process of Romanization which she had 
begun in Italy and Sicily. Many farmers and traders 
went to Spain; even Roman soldiers, quartered there 
for long periods, married Spanish wives, and, on 
retiring from active service, settled in the peninsula. 
Rome made her way by the sword; but after the 
sword came Roman civilization. 

While Rome was subduing and Romanizing the 
western Mediterranean, she also began to extend her 
influence in the eastern Mediterranean. The king¬ 
dom of Macedonia was the first Hellenistic state to 


126 


Rome 


become subject to Rome. Thus disappeared a great 
power which Philip had founded and Alexander had 
led to the conquest of the world. 

Having overcome Macedonia, Rome proclaimed 
the freedom” of Greece. But this meant really sub¬ 
jection, as was proved a few years later when the 
Achaean League became involved in a struggle with 
the Italian republic. The heavy hand of Roman 
vengeance descended on Corinth, the chief member 
of the league and at this time one of the most beauti¬ 
ful cities in the world. In 146 B. c., the same year in 
which the destruction of Carthage occurred, Corinth 
was sacked and burned to the ground. The Greeks • 
were henceforth subject to Rome. They remained 

undei foreign sway until the nineteenth century of 
our era. 

Rome was also drawn into a conflict with the king¬ 
dom of Syria. That Hellenistic power proved to be 
no more capable than Macedonia of checking the 
Roman arms. The Seleucid king had to give up most 
of his territories in Asia Minor. The western part 
of the peninsula, together with the Greek cities on the 
coast, was erected in 133 b. C. into the province of 
Asia. The same year that witnessed the complete 
establishment of Roman rule in Spain thus saw Rome 
gain her first possessions at the opposite end of the 
Mediterranean. 


Rome, Mistress of the Mediterranean Basin 

Rome’s dealings with her new dependencies over¬ 
seas did not follow the methods that proved so 
successful in Italy. The Italian peoples had received 
liberal treatment. Rome regarded them as allies and 
in many instances conferred upon them Roman citi- 


Rome, Mistress of Mediterranean Basin 127 

zenship. But for non-Italians Rome adopted the 
same system of imperial rule that had been previously 
followed by Persia and by Athens. She treated the 
foreign peoples from Spain to Asia as subjects and 
made her conquered territories into provinces. Their 
inhabitants were obliged to pay tribute and accept 
the oversight of Roman officials. 

The proper management of conquered territories 
is always a difficult problem for the best-intentioned 
state. It cannot be truly said, however, that even 
Rome’s intentions were praiseworthy. There was 
little desire to rule for the good of the subject peoples. 
A Roman governor exercised almost absolute sway 
over his province. Usually he looked upon it as a 
source of personal gain and did everything possible 
during his year of office to enrich himself at the 
expense of the inhabitants. They could indeed com¬ 
plain of the governor’s conduct to the Senate, which 
had appointed him, but their injuries stood little 
chance of being redressed by senatorial courts quite 
ignorant of provincial affairs and notoriously open to 
bribery. To the extortions of the governors must be 
added that of the tax collectors, whose very name of 
“publican” became a byword for greed and rapacity. 

A possible solution of the problem of provincial 
administration might have been found, if the provin¬ 
cials had been allowed to send delegates to speak and 
act for them before the Senate and the popular assem¬ 
blies of Rome. But the representative system met 
no more favor with the Romans than with the Athe¬ 
nians. Rome, like Athens, was a city-state suddenly 
called to the responsibilities of imperial rule. The 
machinery of her government had been devised for 
a small republican community, and it broke down 


128 


Rome 


when extended to distant lands and peoples. A single 
city could not administer, with justice and efficiency, 
all Italy and the Mediterranean basin. 

Successful foreign wars greatly enriched Rome. 

t the end of a campaign the soldiers received large 
gifts from their commander, besides the booty taken 
from the enemy. The state itself made money from 
the sale of enslaved prisoners and their property. 
V\ hen once peace had been declared, Roman gover¬ 
nors and tax collectors followed in the wake of the 
armies and squeezed the provincials at every turn. 

1 he Romans, indeed, seem to have conquered the 
world less for glory than for profit. 

So much wealth poured into Rome from every side 
that there could scarcely fail to be a sudden growth 
of luxurious tastes, as had been the case with the 
Greeks and Macedonians after Alexander’s conquests. 
Newly rich Romans developed a relish for all sorts 
of reckless display. They built fine houses adorned 
with statues, costly paintings, and furnishings Thev 
surrounded themselves with troops of slaves. At 
their banquets they spread embroidered carpets pur¬ 
ple coverings, and dishes of gilt plate. Pomp and 
splendor replaced the rude simplicity of earlier times. 

tie rich were becoming richer, it seems that the 
poor were also becoming poorer. After Rome had 
conquered so much of the Mediterranean basin her 
markets were flooded with the cheap wheat raised 

Ind nLT'a?’ eSP m! alIy ^ th0SC *«««*■, Sicily 
that R fnCa ' ThC PnCC ° f Wheat feI1 so low 

that Roman peasants could not raise enough to sup¬ 
port their families and pay their taxes. They had to 
;e out, often at a ruinous sacrifice, to capitalists, who 
turned many small farms into extensive sheep pas- 


Rome, Mistress of Mediterranean Basin 129 

tures, cattle ranches, vineyards, and olive orchards. 
These great estates were worked by gangs of slaves 
from Carthage, Spain, Macedonia, Greece, and Asia 
Minor. Thus disappeared the free peasantry, which 
had always been the strength of the Roman state. 

The decline of agriculture and the ruin of the 
small farmer under the stress of foreign competition 
may be studied in modern England, as well as in 
ancient Italy. Nowadays an Englishman, under the 
same circumstances, will often emigrate to America 
or to Australia, where land is cheap and it is easy to 
make a living. But Roman peasants did not care to 
go abroad. They thronged, instead, to the cities, to 
Rome especially, where they labored for a small 
wage, fared plainly on wheat bread, and dwelt in 
huge lodging houses, three or four stories high. 

We know little about these poor people of Rome. 
They must have lived from hand to mouth. Since 
their votes controlled elections in the popular assem¬ 
blies, they were courted by candidates for office and 
kept from grumbling by being fed and amused. Such 
property-less citizens, too lazy for steady work, too 
intelligent to starve, formed, with the riffraff of a 
great city, the elements of a dangerous mob. And 
the mob, henceforth, plays an ever larger part in the 
history of the times. 

The conquest by the Romans, first of Magna 
Graecia and Sicily, then of Greece itself and the 
Hellenistic East, familiarized them with Greek cul¬ 
ture. Roman soldiers and traders carried back to 
Italy an acquaintance with Greek customs. Thou¬ 
sands of cultivated Greeks, some slaves and others 
freemen, settled in Rome as actors, physicians, artists, 
and writers. Here they introduced the language, 


130 


Rome 


religion, literature, and art of their native land. 
Roman nobles of the better type began to take an 
interest in other things than farming, commerce, or 
war. They imitated Greek fashions in dress and 
manners, collected Greek books, and filled their 
homes with the productions of Greek art. Hence¬ 
forth every aspect of Roman society felt the quicken¬ 
ing influence of the older, richer culture of the Greek 
world. It was a Roman poet who wrote: “Captive 
Greece captured her conqueror rude.” 

Decline of the Roman City-State, 133-31 B. C. 

The period from 133 to 31 B. c. witnessed the 
breakdown of republican institutions and ended with 
the setting-up of autocracy at Rome. The Roman 
city-state, formerly a free, self-governing common¬ 
wealth, became transformed into an empire. There 
were two principal causes of the transformation. 
The first cause was political strife between Roman 
citizens. The class struggles of this period offered 
every opportunity for unscrupulous leaders to mount 
to power, now with the support of the Senate and 
the nobles, now with that of the populace. The sec¬ 
ond cause was foreign warfare, which enabled ambi¬ 
tious generals, supported by their soldiery, to become 
supreme in the government. Rome, after conquering 

the nations, found that she must herself submit to the 
rule of one man. 

The century of revolution began with Tiberius 
Gracchus, who belonged to a noble Roman family 
distinguished for its services to the republic. He 
started out as a moderate social reformer. Having 
been elected one of the ten tribunes of the people he 
brought forward in 133 b. c. a measure intended to 


I 


Decline of the Roman City-State 131 

revive the drooping agriculture of Italy. Tiberius 
proposed that the public lands of Rome, then largely 
occupied by wealthy men, who alone had the capital 
to work them with cattle and slaves, should be 
reclaimed by the state, divided into small tracts, and 
given to the poorer citizens. This proposal aroused a 
hornet’s nest about the reformer’s ears. Rich people 
had occupied the public lands so long that they had 
come to look upon them as really their own. The 
great land owners in the Senate got another tribune, 
devoted to their interests, to place his veto on the 
measure. The impatient Tiberius now took a false 
step. Though a magistrate could not legally be 
removed from office, Tiberius had the offending trib¬ 
une deposed and thus secured the desired legislation. 
His arbitrary conduct further incensed the aristocrats, 
who threatened to impeach him as soon as his term 
expired. To avoid impeachment Tiberius sought 
re-election to the tribunate for the following year. 
This, again, was contrary to the constitution, which 
did not permit any one to hold office for two succes¬ 
sive terms. On the day appointed for the election, 
while voting was in progress, a crowd of senators 
burst into the Forum and killed Tiberius, together 
with three hundred of his followers. Both sides had 
now begun to disregard the law. Force and blood¬ 
shed, henceforth, were to decide political dis¬ 
putes. 

Nine years after the death of Tiberius Gracchus, 
his brother Gaius became a tribune. One of Gaius’s 
first measures permitted the sale of grain from public 
storehouses to Roman citizens at about half the mar¬ 
ket price. The law made Gaius popular with the 
poorer classes, but it was very unwise. Indiscrimi- 


132 


Rome 


nate charity of this sort increased, rather than les¬ 
sened the number of paupers. Gaius showed much 
more statesmanship in his other measures. He en¬ 
couraged the emigration of landless men from Italy 
to the piovinces and introduced reforms in provin¬ 
cial administration. He even proposed to bestow the 
right of voting in the assemblies at Rome upon the 
inhabitants of the Latin colonies. This effort to 
extend Roman citizenship cost Gaius his popularity. 
It aroused the jealousy of the cffy mob, which 
believed that the enrollment of new citizens would 
mean the loss of its privileges. There would not be 
so many free shows and so much cheap grain. The 
people therefore rejected the measure. They even 
failed to re-elect Gaius to the tribunate, though a law 
ad been recently passed permitting a man to hold the 
position of tribune year after year. When Gaius was 
no longer protected by the sanctity of the tribune’s 
office, he fell an easy victim to senatorial hatred. 
Another bloody tumult broke out, in which Gaius 
and several thousand of his followers perished. 

Civil strife at Rome had so far left the aristocrats 
at the head of affairs. They still controlled the Sen¬ 
ate and the Senate still governed Rome. But that 
o y had degenerated. The senators were no longer 
such able and patriotic men as those who had piloted 
the state while Rome was gaining world dominion 
They now thought less of the republic than of their 
own interests. Hence, as we have just seen, they 
blocked every effort of the Gracchi to improve the 
condition of the poorer citizens in Italy or of the 
provincials outside of Italy. Their incompetence 
and corruption made the people more anxious than 
ever for a leader against the senatorial aristocracy 


Decline of the Roman City-State 133 


The popular leader who appeared before long was 
not another tribune but a general named Marius. He 
gained his greatest distinction in a war with some of 
the Teutonic peoples. These barbarians, whom we 
now hear of for the first time, had begun their migra¬ 
tions southward toward the Mediterranean basin. 
Rome was henceforth to face them in every century 
of her national existence. The decisive victories 
which Marius gained over them in southern Gaul 
and northern Italy removed a grave danger threaten¬ 
ing Rome. The time had not come for ancient civili¬ 
zation to be submerged under a wave of barbarism. 

Meanwhile, the senatorial aristocracy also found a 
leader in the brilliant noble Sulla. He, too, rose to 
eminence as a successful general, this time in a war 
between Rome and the Italian allies. It resulted 
from the refusal of the Senate and popular assemblies 
to extend Roman citizenship throughout Italy. The 
war ended only when Rome granted the desired citi¬ 
zenship, thus returning to her policy in former times. 
The inhabitants of nearly all the Italian towns were 
soon enrolled as citizens at Rome, though they could 
not vote or stand for office unless they visited in per¬ 
son the capital city. In practice, therefore, the popu¬ 
lace of Rome still had the controlling voice in 
ordinary legislation. 

Marius and Sulla were rivals not only in war but 
also in politics. The one was the champion of the 
democrats, the other of the aristocrats. The rivalry 
between them finally led to civil war, with its attend¬ 
ant bloodshed. Sulla triumphed, thus becoming 
supreme in the state. Rome now came undei the rule 
of one man, for the first time since the expulsion of 
the kings. Sulla used his position of Perpetual 


134 


Rome 


Dictator” only to pass a series of laws intended to 
intrench the Senate in power. He then retired to 
private life and died soon afterward (78 B. C.). 

After Sulla’s death his friend Pompey was the 
leading figure in Roman politics. Pompey won great 
fame as a commander. He crushed a rebellion of the 
Spaniards, put down a formidable insurrection in 
Italy of slaves, outlaws, and ruined peasants, ridded 
the Mediterranean of pirates, and won sweeping con¬ 
quests in the East, where he annexed Syria and Pales¬ 
tine to the Roman dominions. 

Rome at this time contained another able man in 
the person of Julius Ca3sar. He belonged to a noble 
family, but his father had favored the democratic 
cause and his aunt had married Marius. Caesar as 
a young man threw himself wholeheartedly into the 
exciting game of politics as played in the capital city. 
He won the ear of the multitude by his fiery 
harangues, his bribes of money, and his gifts and 
public shows. After spending all his private fortune 
in this way, he was “financed” by the millionaire 
Crassus, who lent him the money so necessary for a 
successful career as a politician. Caesar, Crassus, and 
Pompey soon combined in what the Romans called a 
triumvirate, but what we should call a “ring.” 
Pompey contributed his soldiers, Crassus his wealth, 
and Caesar his influence over the mob. These three 
men were now really masters of Rome. 

Caesai was ambitious. The careers of Marius, 
Sulla, and Pompey taught him that the road to power 
at Rome lay through a military command, which 
would furnish an army devoted to his personal for¬ 
tunes. Accordingly, after serving a year as consul, 
he obtained an appointment as governor of Gaul.' 


JULIUS CAESAR AUGUSTUS 

A bust in the British Museum, London A bust in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston 












THE PALACES OF THE CESARS 

A painting by J. M. W. Turner 













Decline of the Roman City-State 135 

The story of his campaigna there he has himself 
related in the famous Commentaries, still a Latin 
text in the schools. Starting from southern Gaul, 
which was Roman territory at this time, he conquered 
the Gallic tribes in one battle after another, twice 
bridged the Rhine and invaded Germany, made two 
military expeditions across the Channel to Britain, 
and brought within the Roman dominions all the ter¬ 
ritory bounded by the Pyrenees, the Alps, the Rhine, 
and the Atlantic Ocean. 

Caesar’s conquest of Gaul widened the map of the 
civilized world from the Mediterranean basin to the 
shores of the Atlantic. Gaul soon received and speed¬ 
ily adopted the Latin language, Roman law, and the 
customs and religion of Rome. “Let the Alps sink,” 
exclaimed the orator Cicero, “the gods raised them to 
shelter Italy from the barbarians, but now they are no 
longer needed.” 

The death of Crassus, during Caesar’s absence in 
Gaul, dissolved the triumvirate. Pompey and Caesar 
soon began to draw apart and at length became open 
enemies. Pompey had the support of the Senate, 
whose members believed that Caesar was aiming at 
despotic power. Caesar, on his side, had an army 
disciplined by eight years of fighting. Unable to 
compromise with the Senate, Caesar boldly led his 
troops across the Rubicon, the stream that separated 
Cisalpine Gaul from Roman Italy, and marched on 
Rome. Thus began another civil war. It was fought 
in Italy, in Spain, in Greece, and in North Africa. 
It ended in the defeat and death of Pompey, the 
overthrow of the senatorial party, and the complete 
supremacy of Caesar in the Roman state. He ruled 
supreme for only two years, and then fell a victim to 


136 


Rome 


a group of irreconcilable nobles, who struck him 
down in the Senate-house at Rome (44 B. c.). 

Aftei Caesar s death his grandnephew and adopted 
heir, Octavian, joined forces with Antony, the most 
prominent of Caesar’s officers, and together they 
defeated the senatorial party. They then divided the 
Roman world, Octavian taking Italy and the West, 
Antony taking the East, with Alexandria in Egypt 
as his capital. Before long the inevitable civil war 
broke out between them. It was decided in 31 B. c., 
by the victory of Octavian in a naval battle near 
Actium on the western coast of Greece. Antony and 
his Egyptian queen, Cleopatra, fled to Egypt, where 
both committed suicide rather than fall into the con¬ 
queror s hands. The death of Cleopatra ended the 
Hellenistic dynasty of the Ptolemies, rulers of Egypt 
since the time of Alexander the Great. Egypt hence¬ 
forth became a part of the Roman dominions. 

The battle of Actium closed the century of revolu¬ 
tion. ^Octavian, now without a rival, stepped into 
Caesar’s place as master of the Roman world. With 
Caesar and Octavian Europe thus went back to mon¬ 
archy, to one-man rule, such as had always prevailed 
in the Orient. It is only since the end of the eigh¬ 
teenth century that republicanism, as a form of gov¬ 
ernment, has begun again to find favor among 
European peoples. 

The Early Empire, 31 B. C.-284 A. D. 

Few persons have set their stamp more indelibly 
on the pages of history than Octavian, whom we may 
now call by his more familiar name Augustus (“the 
Majestic”), conferred upon him by the Senate as a 
mark of respect. Another title borne by him and his 





















































































*37 


The Early Empire 

successors was that of Imperator, from which our 
word “emperor” is derived. The emperor Augustus 
enjoyed practically unlimited power, since he was 
commander-in-chief of the army. He took care, 
however, to conceal his authority under legal forms 
and to pose as a republican magistrate holding office 
by appointment of the Senate. An American presi¬ 
dent would have a somewhat similar position if he 
ruled for life instead of for four years, selected the 
members of Congress, and designated his successor. 
In other words, Augustus gave up the externals, only 
to keep the essentials, of monarchy. 

The Roman Empire in the age of Augustus 
girdled the Mediterranean basin. On the west and 
south it found natural barriers in the Atlantic Ocean 
and the Sahara Desert. On the east the Euphrates 
River divided it from the kingdom of the Parthians. 
The northern frontier, beyond which lay the Teutonic 
peoples, required additional conquests for its pro¬ 
tection. Augustus therefore annexed the districts 
south of the Danube, thus securing the entire line of 
this wide, impetuous stream as a boundary. Between 
Gaul and Germany the boundary continued to be 
the Rhine. 

The successors of Augustus made two important 
additions to the empire. During the reign of Claud¬ 
ius (41-54 A. D.) the Romans began to overrun 
Britain, which had been left alone for nearly a cen¬ 
tury after Caesar’s expeditions to the island. Britain, 
as far as the Scottish Highlands, was finally brought 
under Roman sway and organized as a province 
( Britannia ). It remained a part of the Roman 
Empire for more than three hundred years, becoming 
in this time almost as completely Romanized as Spain 


Rome 



and Gaul. Northern Scotland ( Caledonia) and 

Ireland ( Hibernia ) the Romans never attempted to 
conquer. 

1 he reign of Trajan (98-117 A. D.) saw the empire 
enlarged to its greatest extent. The conquests which 
this soldier-emperor made in Asia (Armenia and the 
valley of the Tigris-Euphrates) were abandoned by 
his successor on the throne; but those in Europe, 
resulting in the annexation of Dacia, north of the 
Danube, had more permanence. Thousands of col¬ 


onists soon settled in Dacia and brought with them 
Roman civilization. The modern name of this coun¬ 
try (Rumania) and the Latinized language of its 

people bear witness to Rome’s abiding influence 
there. 


The Roman Empire, at the zenith of its power in 
the second century of our era, included forty-three 
provinces. The provincials enjoyed far better treat¬ 
ment from the new imperial government than they 
had ever received at the hands of the republican Sen¬ 
ate. Furthermore, Augustus and his successors stead- 
1 y extended Roman citizenship to the provincials 
and in 212 A. d. Caracalla issued a decree making all 
reemen in the empire citizens. Henceforth, Span¬ 
iards, Gauls, Britons, Greeks, Syrians, and Egyptians 
were Romans equally with the people of' Italy 
Rome, instead of being the ruling city of the empire 
thus became merely its capital or seat of government.’ 
The provinces were protected against invasion by a 
standing army of about four hundred thousand men 
The soldiers belonged to all the different nationali¬ 
ties within the empire and served for a long period of 

y th a \ m T n0t Cngaged in dri11 or border warfare 
they built the great highways which, starting from 


139 


The Early Empire 

Rome, penetrated every province; erected bridges 
and aqueducts; and along the exposed frontiers 
raised forts and walls. In her roads and fortifications, 
in the living rampart of her legions, Rome long 
found security. For two hundred years after Augus¬ 
tus the civilized world within the boundaries of the 
empire rested under what an ancient writer calls “the 
immense majesty of the Roman Peace.” 

The peace and prosperity of the Empire during 
the first and second centuries of our era fostered the 
growth of cities. They were numerous, and many of 
them, even when judged by modern standards, were 
large. Rome had a population of between one and 
two millions. Alexandria came next in size, and 
Syracuse ranked as the third metropolis of the 
empire. Italy had such important centers as Naples, 
Genoa, Florence, Verona, Milan, and Ravenna. In 
Gaul were Marseilles, Bordeaux, Lyons, Paris, Stras¬ 
bourg, Cologne, and Mainz—all places with a con¬ 
tinuous existence to the present day. In Spain were 
Barcelona, Cadiz, Cartagena, and Seville. In Brit¬ 
ain were London, York, Lincoln, and Chester. 
Greece, Asia Minor, Syria, Egypt, and North Africa 
contained a great number of cities, some of them 
established in Hellenistic times and others of Roman 
formation. 

Every city was a miniature Rome, with its forum 
and senate-house, its temples, theaters, and baths, its 
circus for horse racing, and its amphitheater for glad¬ 
iatorial shows. The excavations at Pompeii have 
revealed to us the appearance of one of these Roman 
cities. What we find at Pompeii was repeated on a 
more splendid scale in hundreds of places from the 
Danube to the Nile, from Britain to Arabia. 



140 


Rome 


The cities of Roman origin, especially those in the 
western provinces, copied the political institutions of 
Rome. Each had a council modeled on the Senate, 
and a popular assembly, which chose magistrates cor¬ 
responding to the two consuls and other officials. 
This Roman system of city government descended to 

the Middle Ages and so passed over to our own 
day. 

The Early Empire formed the golden age of 
Roman commerce. Augustus and his successors put 
down piracy in the Mediterranean, built lighthouses 
and improved harbors, policed the highways, and 
made travel by land both speedy and safe. An impe¬ 
rial currency replaced the various national coinages 
with their limited circulation. The vexatious import 
and export duties, levied by different countries on 
foreign products, were swept away. Free trade flour¬ 
ished between the cities and provinces of the Roman 
world. 

Roman commerce followed, in general, the routes 
which had been used by the Phoenicians and Greeks. 
The annexation of Gaul, Britain, and the districts 
north and south of the Danube opened up trade chan¬ 
nels between western and central Europe and the 
Mediterranean basin. Imports from the East reached 
the Mediterranean either by caravan through Asia 
or by ships which sailed across the Indian Ocean to 
the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea. 

The slaves at Rome, like those at Athens, engaged 
in many occupations. They worked as farm laborers, 
miners, artisans, shopkeepers, and domestic servants. 
The possession of a fine troop of slaves, dressed in 
handsome livery, formed a favorite way of parading 
ones wealth. Not all manual labor was performed 


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THE ROMAN FORUM AT THE PRESENT TIME 




















The Early Empire 141 

by slaves, however. Slavery tended to decline, partly 
because there were now no more wars to furnish cap¬ 
tives for the slave markets and partly in consequence 
of the growing custom of emancipation. The free 
workingmen who took the place of slaves seem to 
have led a fairly comfortable existence. They were 
not forced to labor for long hours in grimy, unwhole¬ 
some factories. Slums existed, but no sweatshops. If 
wages were low, so also was the cost of living. Wine, 
oil, and wheat flour were cheap. The mild climate 
made heavy clothing unnecessary and permitted an 
outdoor life. The public baths — great clubhouses — 
stood open to every one who could pay a trifling fee. 
Numerous holidays, celebrated with games and 
shows, brightened existence. It is perhaps significant 
that Roman annals contain no record of a single 
labor strike. Free workingmen often formed clubs, 
or guilds. There were guilds of weavers, shoe¬ 
makers, jewelers, painters, musicians, and even of 
gladiators. These associations were for social and 
religious purposes. 

We have already seen that the class of peasant pro¬ 
prietors disappeared from Italy during republican 
times. It did not revive subsequently. Land was 
owned by the emperor and few other rich persons and 
was cultivated by free tenants or by slaves. The per¬ 
son who tilled the soil usually depended upon his 
landlord for tools, domestic animals, and other farm 
equipment. Such great domains had long prevailed 
in the East under the Persians and in North Africa 
under the Carthaginians. The Romans extended this 
system of land holding to Spain, Gaul, Britain, and 
other provinces, and it afterward became general 
throughout western Europe during the Middle Ages. 


142 


Rome 


The World Under Roman Rule 

The Roman Empire consisted of three sections, 
differing widely in their previous history. There 
was an Oriental section, which included such parts 
of the Near East as had come under Roman rule; 
there was a Greek section, centering about the 
iEgean ; and there was a distinctively Roman or Latin 
section, which consisted of the western provinces. 
In the Near East the Romans came only as conquer¬ 
ors, and Roman culture never took deep root there. 
The same was true of the iEgean lands, where the 
Greek language and customs held their ground. In 
the barbarian West, however, the Romans appeared 
not only as conquerors, but also as civilizers. The 
Romanization of the western provinces—modern 
Spain, Portugal, France, Belgium, Switzerland, and 
England, together with the Rhine and Danube val- 
leys forms quite the most significant aspect of 
ancient history. It was particularly their law and 
their language which the Romans gave to European 
peoples. 

The code of the Twelve Tables, framed by the 
Romans almost at the beginning of the republic, was 
too harsh, technical, and brief to meet the needs of a 
growing state. The Romans gradually improved 
their legal system, after they began to rule over con¬ 
quered territories and to become familiar with the 
customs of foreign peoples. Roman law in this way 
took on an exact, impartial, liberal, and humane 
character. It limited the use of torture to force con¬ 
fession from persons accused of crime. It protected 
the child against a father’s tyranny and wives against 
ill-treatment by their husbands. It provided that a 
master who killed a slave should be punished as a 



The World Under Roman Rule 143 

murderer, and even taught that all men are originally 

free by nature and therefore that slavery is contrary 

to natural right. Justice it defined as “the steady and 

abiding purpose to give to every man that which is 
his own.” 

The extension of Roman citizenship to the pro¬ 
vincials carried this better law throughout the 
empire. It survived the empire. During the reign 
of Justinian (527-565 A. D.) all the sources of Roman 
law, including the legislation of the popular assem¬ 
blies, the decrees of the Senate, the edicts of the 
emperors, and the decisions of learned lawyers, were 
collected and put into scientific form. The result was 
the famous code called the Corpus Juris Civilis , the 
Body of Civil Law.” It passed from ancient Rome 
to modern Europe, becoming the foundation of the 
legal systems of Italy, Spain, France, Germany, and 
other Continental countries. It also prevails in the 
province of Quebec and the state of Louisiana, ter¬ 
ritories formerly belonging to France, throughout 
Latin America, and in the Philippines. Even the 
Common Law of England, which has been adopted 
by the United States, owes some of its principles to 
the Corpus Juris Civilis. The law of Rome, be¬ 
cause of this widespread influence, is justly regarded 
as one of her most important gifts to the world. 

The Romans carried their language to the bar¬ 
barian countries of the West, as they had carried it 
throughout Italy. The Latin spoken by Roman 
colonists, merchants, soldiers, and public officials was 
eagerly taken up by the natives, who tried to make 
themselves as much like their conquerors as possible. 
This provincial Latin became the foundation of 
the so-called Romance languages—French, Italian, 



r 44 


Rome 


Spanish, Portuguese, and Rumanian—which arose in 
the Middle Ages. Even our English language, which 
comes to us from the speech of the Teutonic invaders 
of Britain, contains so many words of Latin origin 
that we can scarcely utter a sentence without using 
some of them. The language of Rome, as well as 
the law of Rome, still remains to enrich the intellec¬ 
tual life of mankind. 

It is easy, after centuries of Christian progress, to 
criticize numerous features of Roman society during 
the imperial age. The institution of slavery, an 
inheritance from prehistoric times, condemned mul¬ 
titudes to bare, hard, hopeless lives. Infanticide, 
especially of female children, was frequent enough 
among the lower classes, as was suicide among the 
upper classes. The brutal gladiatorial games were 
a passion with every one, from the emperor to his 
humblest subject. Common as divorce has now 
become, the married state was more and more 
regarded as undesirable. Augustus vainly made laws 
to encourage matrimony and to discourage celibacy. 
Both educated and uneducated people believed 
firmly in magic, witchcraft, and the existence of 
demons. The decline of the earlier paganism left 
many men and women without a deep religious faith 
to offset the doubt and worldliness of the age. 

^ et this picture needs correction. It may be ques¬ 
tioned whether the luxury and vice of ancient Rome, 
Antioch, or Alexandria much exceeded what our 
great modern capitals can show. During the impe¬ 
rial age, moreover, remarkable improvements took 
place in social life. There was an increasing kind¬ 
liness and charity. The weak and the infirm were 
better treated. The education of the poor was 


Christianity in the Roman World 145 

encouraged by the founding of free schools. Wealthy 
citizens lavished their fortunes on such public works 
as baths, aqueducts, and theaters, for the benefit of 
all classes. Even the slaves received better treatment. 
Imperial laws aimed to correct the abuses of neglect, 
overwork, and cruelty, and philosophers recom¬ 
mended to masters the exercise of gentleness and 
mercy toward their bondmen. In fact, a great 
growth of the humanitarian spirit marked the first 
and second centuries of our era. 

Just as Alexander’s conquests, by uniting the Near 
East and Greece, produced a Hellenistic civilization, 
so now the expansion of Rome throughout the Medi¬ 
terranean basin and beyond the Alps gave rise to a 
still wider civilization, which embraced much of 
Europe, with the adjacent parts of Asia and Africa. 
The Roman Empire contained perhaps seventy-five 
million people, at peace with one another, possessing 
the same rights of citizenship, obeying one law, 
speaking Latin in the West and Greek in the East, 
and bound together by trade, travel, and a common 
loyalty to the imperial government. Unconsciously, 
but none the less surely, local habits and manners, 
national religions and tongues, provincial institutions 
and customs, disappeared from the ancient world. 
Rome thus made a tremendous advance towaid inter¬ 
nationalization, toward the formation of a society 
embracing civilized mankind. 

Christianity in the Roman World 

Several centuries before the rise of Christianity, 
many Greek thinkers began to feel a growing dissatis¬ 
faction with the crude faith which had come down to 
them from prehistoric times. They found it difficult 


146 


Rome 


to accept the Olympian deities, who were fashioned 
like themselves and had all the faults of mortal men. 
For educated Romans, also, the beliefs and cere¬ 
monies of paganism came gradually to lose their 
meaning. Even the worship of the emperors, which 
helped to hold the Roman world together, failed to 
satisfy the spiritual needs of the age. 

The Asiatic conquests of Alexander, followed in 
later centuries by the extension of Roman rule over 
the eastern Mediterranean, brought the classical 
peoples in contact with new religions which had 
arisen in the Orient. These religions centered about 
some divine figure who was regarded as a redeemer 
from sin and evil. 1 hey provided a beautiful, inspir¬ 
ing ritual, and they offered to their devotees the 
promise of a happier existence beyond the grave. 
Such was the worship of the Persian sun god Mithra 
and the Egyptian goddess Isis. Such, also, was 
Christianity. 

Christianity rose among the Jews, for Jesus was a 
Jew and his disciples were Jews. The first Christians 
did not neglect to keep up the customs of the Jewish 
religion. Tt was even doubted for a time whether 
any but Jews could properly be allowed within the 
Christian fold. A new convert, Saul of Tarsus, after¬ 
ward the Apostle Paul, did most to admit the Gen¬ 
tiles, or pagans, to the privileges of the new religion. 
Though born a Jew, Paul had been trained in the 
schools of Tarsus, a city of Asia Minor which was a 
center of Greek culture. His education thus helped 
to make him an acceptable missionary to Greek- 
activity Paul established churches in Asia Minor, 
speaking peoples. During more than thirty years of 
Macedonia, Greece, and Italy. He wrote to these 


Christianity in the Roman World 


i47 


churches the letters (epistles) which have a place in 
the New Testament and set forth many doctrines of 
the Christian faith. 

Christianity spread rapidly over the Roman world. 
It was carried, as the other Oriental religions had 
been carried, by slaves, soldiers, traders, travelers, 
and missionaries. The use of Greek and Latin as the 
common languages of the Roman Empire furnished 
a medium in which Christian speakers and writers 
could be readily understood. The early missionaries, 
such as Paul himself, were often Roman citizens, who 
enjoyed the protection of Roman law and profited 
by the ease of travel which the imperial rule had 
made possible. Moreover, the destruction of Jerusa¬ 
lem by the Romans (70 A. D.) and the subsequent 
exile of Jews from Palestine (135 A. D.) spread the 
Chosen People throughout the Roman Empire, 
where they familiarized the pagans with Jewish 
ideals of monotheism and moral purity and with 
Jewish hopes for a Messiah, thus preparing the way 
for Christianity. At no other period in ancient 
history were conditions so favorable for the growth 
of a world religion. 

The imperial government, which had treated other 
foreign faiths with careless indifference, or even with 
favor, which had tolerated the Jews and granted to 
them special privileges of worship, made a deliberate 
effort to crush Christianity. The reason was that it 
seemed to threaten the existence of the state. Con¬ 
verts to the new religion condemned the official pa¬ 
ganism as idolatrous; they refused to swear by pagan 
gods in courts of law; they would not worship the 
genius (guardian spirit) of the emperor or burn in¬ 
cense before his statue, which stood in every town. 


148 


Rome 


Naturally, the Christians were outlawed and from 
time to time were subjected to persecutions in vari¬ 
ous parts of the empire. The last persecution, early 
in the fourth century, was the most severe. It contin¬ 
ued for eight years, but failed to shake the constancy 
of the Christians. They welcomed the torture and 
death which would gain for them a heavenly crown. 
Those who perished were called “martyrs,” that is, 
“witnesses” to Christ. 

The imperial government at length realized the 
uselessness of the persecutions, and in 313 A. D. Con¬ 
stantine and his colleague, Licinius, issued the Edict 
of Milan, which proclaimed for the first time in his¬ 
tory the principle of religious toleration. This edict 
placed Christianity on a legal equality with the other 
religions of the empire. Constantine himself accepted 
Christianity and favored it throughout his reign. 
Under his direction the first general council of the 
Church assembled in 325 A.D. at Nicaea in Asia Minor 
to settle a dispute over the nature of Christ. The 
council framed the Nicene Creed, which is still the 
accepted summary of Christian doctrine. Christian¬ 
ity continued to progress after Constantine and be¬ 
came the state religion by the close of the fourth 
century. Sacrifices to the pagan gods were hence¬ 
forth forbidden, the temples closed, the Delphic or¬ 
acle and Olympian games forbidden, and even the 
private worship of ancestors prohibited. 

The new religion certainly helped to soften and 
refine manners by the stress which it laid upon such 
“Christian” virtues as humility, tenderness, and 
mercy. By dwelling on the sanctity of human life, 
it did its best to repress the practice of suicide and 
infanticide. It set its face sternly against the obsceni- 


Christianity in the Roman World 


149 


























































150 


Rome 


ties of the theater and the cruelties of the gladiatorial 
shows. Even more original contributions of Chris¬ 
tianity to civilization lay in its social teachings. The 
belief in the fatherhood of God implied a correspond¬ 
ing belief in the brotherhood of man. This doctrine 
of human equality had been expressed before by 
pagan philosophers, but Christianity translated the 
precept into practice. Christianity also laid much 
emphasis on the virtue of charity and the duty of 
supporting all institutions which aimed to relieve the 
lot of the poor, the sick, and the downtrodden. 

The Later Empire, 284-476 a. d. 

The third century formed a very unsettled period 
in the history of the Roman Empire. There were 
many civil wars between rival pretenders to the 
throne; there were constant inroads of Teutonic 
peoples upon the European provinces and of Persians 
(successors of the Parthians) upon the Asiatic 
provinces. The empire, indeed, was unwieldy. One 
man, however able and energetic, had more than he 
could do to govern all of it and protect the distant 
frontiers on the Rhine, the Danube, and the 
Euphrates. Diocletian, a common soldier who rose 
from the ranks and became emperer in 284 A. D., 
recognized this fact and appointed a second emperor 
to rule jointly with himself. He took the East; his 
colleague took the West. 

Diocletian also remodeled the provincial system, 
in the interest of efficiency. The entire empire, 
including Italy, was divided into one hundred and 
twenty provinces, grouped into thirteen dioceses and 
four prefectures. Henceforth a regular gradation 
of public officials reached from the lowest provincial 




ORIENTAL, GREEK, AND ROMAN COINS 


i. Lydian coin of about 700 B.c. ; the material is electrum, a compound of gold and silver 
2. Gold daric , a Persian coin worth about $5. 3. Hebrew silver shekel. 4. Athenian 

silver tetradrachm, showing Athena, her olive branch, and sacred owl. 5. Roman bronze as 
(2 cents) of about 217 b,c, ; the symbols are the head of Janus and the prow of a ship. 
6, Bronze sestertius (5 cents) struck in Nero’s reign ; the emperor, who carries a spear, is 
followed by a second horseman bearing a banner. 7. Silver denarius (20 cents) of about 
99 b.c. ; it shows a bust of Roma and three citizens voting. 8. Gold solidus ($5) of the 
emperor Honorius, about 400 a.d. ; the emperor wears a diadem and carries a scepter. 





i. Steatite, from Crete; two lions with forefeet on a pedestal; above, a sun. 2. Sardonyx 
from Elis; a goddess holding up a goat by the horns. 3. Rock crystal; a bearded Triton. 
4. Carnelian; a youth playing a trigonon. 5. Chalcedony from Athens; a Bacchante*. 
6. Sard; a woman reading a manuscript roll; before her a lyre. 7. Carnelian; Theseus. 
8. Chalcedony; portrait head; Hellenistic Age. 9. Aquamarine; portrait of Julia, daughter 
of the emperor Titus. 10. Chalcedony; portrait head; Hellenistic Age. n. Carnelian; 
bust portrait of the Roman emperor Decius. 12. Beryl; portrait of Julia Domna, wife of 
the emperor Septimius Severus. 13. Sapphire; head of the Madonna. 14. Carnelian; 
the judgment of Paris; Renaissance work. i S . Rock crystal; Madonna with Jesus and St! 
Joseph; probably Norman-Sicilian work. 






















The Later Empire 151 

magistrates to the governors of the provinces, the 
vicars of the dioceses, the prefects of the prefectures, 
and finally to the emperors themselves. The Roman 
Empire thus became a centralized monarchy. 

The Roman Empire likewise became an absolute 
monarchy. The old republican forms which Augus¬ 
tus had so carefully preserved disappeared, and the 
emperor stood forth frankly as the master of the state. 
He assessed the taxes, framed edicts having the force 
of laws, and acted as the supreme judge. He took 
the title of “Lord and God” and required his subjects 
to pay him divine honors both in life and after death. 
He introduced all the pomp of an Oriental court. 
His diadem of pearls, his purple robes, his throne, 
his scepter, all proclaimed the autocrat, and have 
furnished models for imitation bv European sover¬ 
eigns even to the present day. 

The emperor Constantine (sole ruler 324-337 A.D.) 
established another capital for the Roman world at 
the old Greek city of Byzantium, on the European 
side of the Bosporus. It soon took his own name as 
Constantinople, the “City of Constantine.” The new 
capital had a better commercial site than Rome, for 
it stands in Europe, looks on Asia, and commands the 
entrance to both the Black Sea and the Mediter¬ 
ranean. Far more than Rome it was now the military 
center of the empire, being about equidistant from 
the Teutonic barbarians on the lower Danube and 
the Persians on the Euphrates. The city was no less 
favorably situated for defense. It resisted siege after 
siege and for eleven centuries was the capital of what 
remained of the Roman Empire. 

Diocletian’s system of “partnership emperors” and 
Constantine’s transfer of the capital from Italy to the 


152 


Rome 


Balkan Peninsula only emphasized the growing sepa- 
ration of East and West. The Roman Empire tended 
more and more to divide into two states, and after 
Constantine they were never more than temporarily 
reunited. They had very different histories. The 
Roman Empire in the East, though threatened by 



enemies from without and weakened by civil conflicts 
from within, managed to endure until the end of the 
Middle Ages. The Roman Empire in the West lasted 
only until the close of the fifth century. By that time 
Teutonic peoples had established independent king¬ 
doms in Britain, Gaul, Spain, and North Africa. 
When in 476 A. D. the barbarians in Italy deposed 
Romulus Augustulus (“the little Augustus”), whose 
name, curiously enough, recalled that of the legend¬ 
ary founder of Rome and that of its first emperor, 



























l S3 


The Later Empire 

there was no longer any Roman ruler in the West. 
The empire went on at Constantinople, or New 

Rome, but Old Rome itself passed into barbarian 
hands. 

The collapse of the imperial system in the western 
provinces was due to many causes, but we need stress 
only one. The empire made no provision for local , 
self-government. Not only did the numerous slaves 
and serfs lack political rights, but Roman citizens, as 
well, took no part in managing the affairs of state. 
They had simply to pay taxes and take orders from the 
officials whom the emperor placed over them. Even 
the imperial armies came to be made up predomi¬ 
nantly of barbarians instead of native-born Romans. 

It is easy to see that under such circumstances a 
genuine patriotism was non-existent. The people 
looked to their all-powerful government to protect 
them * when it failed to do so they could not, or would 
not, protect themselves. The “fall” of Rome then 
followed, inevitably. 

We are not to suppose that the settlement of the 
barbarians within the Roman Empire ended with the 
deposition of Romulus Augustulus, near the close of 
the fifth century. The following centuries witnessed 
fresh invasions and the establishment of new Teutonic 
states. The study of these troubled times leads us 
from the classical to the medieval world, from the 
history of antiquity to the history of the Middle Aees. 


CHAPTER V 


THE MIDDLE AGES 

The Germans 

The period called the Middle Ages is not well 
defined either as to its beginning or its close. For 
an initial date we have selected the year 476, when 
the imperial provinces in the West were almost 
wholly occupied by Teutonic peoples. The Roman 
Empire had now been dismembered, and barbarian 
kingdoms, destined to become in later centuries the 
national states of western Europe, had been formed 
in Italy, Spain, Gaul, and Britain. For concluding 
dates we may take those of the invention of printing 
(about 1450), the capture of Constantinople by the 
Ottoman Turks (1453), the discovery of America 
( r 492), and the opening of a new sea-route to the 
East Indies (1498). Such significant events, all fall¬ 
ing within the second half of the fifteenth century, 
seem to mark the end of medieval and the beginning 
of modern times. The student will understand, how¬ 
ever, that it is really impossible to separate by precise 
dates one historic period from another. The change 
from antiquity to the Middle Ages and, again, from 
the medieval to the modern world was in each case 
a gradual process extending over several centuries. 
The truth is that the social life of man forms a con¬ 
tinuous growth, and man’s history, an uninterrupted 
stream. 


154 





























The Germans 


GS 


The medieval period falls into two divisions of 
about equal length. The first, or early Middle Ages, 
formed in western Europe an era of turmoil, igno¬ 
rance, and decline, consequent upon the barbarian 
invasions. It required a long time for the Teutonic 
peoples to settle in their new homes and to become 
thoroughly fused with the Romanized provincials. 
The process, of absorption was practically completed 
by the end of the tenth century. Western Europe then 
entered upon the later Middle Ages, an era of more 
settled government, increasing knowledge, and steady 
progress in almost every field of human activity. The 
medieval period thus presents to the historical eye 
not a level stretch of a thousand years, with mankind 
stationary, but rather first a downward and then an 
upward slope. 

The region called Germany ( Germania) in 
antiquity reached from the Rhine eastward as far as 
the Vistula and from the Danube northward to the 
Baltic Sea. Germany consisted of dense forests, 
extensive marshes, and sandy plains, incapable of 
supporting a large population. Clouds and mists 
enveloped the country in summer, and in winter it 
lay buried under snow and ice. Such unfavorable 
conditions retarded the development of Germany, 
which was also shut out from the Mediterranean 
basin by mountain barriers. Hence the inhabitants 
had not advanced in civilization as far as the Greeks 
and Romans. 

The Germans belonged principally to the Baltic 
(Nordic) racial type. Their tall stature, blue eyes, 
and blond or ruddy hair marked them off from the 
shorter and darker Mediterranean peoples. They 
spoke a Teutonic language, related, on the one hand, 


1 I he Middle Ages 

to Greek and Latin and, on the other hand, to the 
Celtic, Lettic, and Slavic tongues. In culture they 
were barbarians, who had passed from the use of 
stone and bronze to that of iron; who hunted, fished, 
kept cattle, and tilled the soil; who formed tribes and 
tribal confederations; and who lived in villages or 
small towns. Some of the Germans nearest the 
Romans learned from the latter to read and write, 
to make better weapons and clothes, to use money, 
to enjoy foreign luxuries, and, what was most impor¬ 
tant, to accept Christianity. The common religion of 
Germans and Romans paved the way for friendly 
intercourse between them. 

The Roman Empire had long been full of Ger¬ 
mans. Many were mercenaries in the imperial army. 
Augustus began the practice of hiring them as sol¬ 
diers, and by the time of Constantine they formed the 
majority of the troops. The emperors also admitted 
friendly tribes of Germans within the frontiers to fill 
up the gaps in population and to farm the waste 
lands. Still other Germans entered the empire as 
slaves. The result was a very considerable “barbar- 

lzation” of the Roman world before the period of 
invasions. 

The love of fighting for its own sake, the desire for 
adventure, and the lust for booty explain, in part, the 
Germanic invasions. But only in part. They were 
principally due to land hunger. When the soil of 
Germany, as people then understood how to use it 
could no longer sustain increasing numbers the 
inhabitants had the alternative of migration or’star¬ 
vation. It was the same grim alternative that has 
confronted man at every stage of savagery, barbarism 
and civilization. The Germans chose to migrate’ 


The Germans 


G7 


even though that meant war, and so from the time of 
Marius and Julius Caesar not a century passed with¬ 
out witnessing some dangerous movement by them 
against the frontiers of the Roman Empire. 

The invasions were of two types. Sometimes entire 
peoples migrated, as was the case with the Visigoths 
(West Goths), Ostrogoths (East Goths), Vandals, 
Burgundians, and Lombards. They all settled 
among a much more numerous subject population, 
which in time absorbed them. None of their king¬ 
doms proved to be enduring. Sometimes, again, 
bands of warriors, led by military chiefs, set out from 
their home land and conquered possessions at the 
expense of the provincials. Such was especially the 
case with the Franks in the northern part of Gaul 
and the Anglo-Saxons in Britain. The Frankish and 
Anglo-Saxon kingdoms were the only ones which 
developed into lasting states during the Middle Ages. 

Ancient civilization suffered a great shock when 
the Germans descended on the Roman Empire. 
They were unlike the provincials in dress and habits 
of life. They lived under different laws, spoke dif¬ 
ferent languages, and obeyed different rulers. Even 
when they settled peaceably within the empire, they 
allowed aqueducts, bridges, and roads to go without 
repairs, and theaters, baths, and public buildings to 
sink into ruins. As they were without appreciation 
of education, they failed to keep up schools, univer¬ 
sities, and libraries. Being devoted chiefly to agri¬ 
culture, they permitted both industry and commerce 
to languish. Ancient civilization had been declining 
before the Germans came. The invasions accelerated 
the decline, with the result that large parts of west¬ 
ern Europe relapsed for several centuries into semi¬ 
barbarism. 


The Middle Ages 


158 

Nevertheless, the Germans had the capacity to 
learn, and the willingness to learn, from those whom 
they had conquered. Their fusion with the Romans 
was helped by the previous settlement within the 
empire of so many German soldiers, colonists, and 
slaves. It was very greatly helped by the fact that 
some of the principal peoples, including the Visi¬ 
goths, Ostrogoths, Vandals, Burgundians, and Lom¬ 
bards, were already Christians at the time of their 
invasions, while other peoples, including the Franks 
and Anglo-Saxons, afterward adopted Christianity. 
Finally, as observed above, the Germans invaded the 
empire to seek homes for themselves, rather than 
simply to pillage and destroy. They accepted what 
they understood of Graeco-Roman culture and then 
imparted to the enfeebled provincials their fresh 
blood, youthful minds, and vigorous, progressive life. 
The fusion of Germans and Romans formed the great 

work of the early Middle Ages in western Europe. 

% 

The Holy Roman Empire 

During the fifth century, while the Visigoths were 
finding a home in southern Gaul and Spain, the 
Ostrogoths in Italy, the Burgundians in the Rhone 
Valley, and the Vandals in North Africa, still 
another German people began to spread over north¬ 
ern Gaul. They were the Franks, who had long held 
lands on both sides of the lower Rhine. Their 
leader, Clovis, conquered the kingdom of Syagrius, 
the only fragment of the Roman Empire remaining 
in Gaul, and then proceeded to annex the territories 
of his German neighbors. He built up in this way 
a great Frankish state. 

The Franks were still heathen when they entered 



















































































The Holy Roman Empire 159 

upon their career of conquest. Clovis, however, had 
married a Burgundian princess, Clotilda, who was 
a devout Roman Catholic and an ardent advocate of 
Christianity. The story is told how, when Clovis was 
hard pressed by the Alamanni in a battle near Stras¬ 
bourg, he vowed that if Clotilda’s God gave him 
victory, he would become a Christian. The Franks 
won, and Clovis, faithful to his vow, had himself and 
three thousand warriors baptized into the Roman 
Catholic faith. By this act the king secured the loy¬ 
alty of his Christian subjects in Gaul and won the 
favor of Rome. The friendship between the popes 
and the Frankish rulers afterward ripened into a 
close alliance. 

The power which Clovis founded stood the test 
of time. For more than two hundred and fifty years 
the successors of Clovis were the strongest rulers in 
western and central Europe. During the eighth cen¬ 
tury they helped to keep Europe Christian by beating 
back the Moslem Arabs, who, having seized Spain 
from the Visigoths, invaded Gaul and threatened to 
make that country also a Moslem land. At last we 
reach a Frankish king who created a Christian and 
German empire to replace the empire of Rome. This 
king was Charles the Great, or Charlemagne. 

Much of Charlemagne’s reign (768-814) was filled 
with warfare. He conquered the Lombards, who had 
taken Italy from the Ostrogoths. He invaded Spain 
and wrested from the Moslems a considerable district 
south of the Pyrenees. Elis long struggle with the 
Saxons and various Slavic peoples farther widened 
the Frankish dominions. Charlemagne at the height 
of his power ruled over the lands now included in 
France, Belgium, Holland, Switzerland, Austria, 


I ^° The Middle Ages 

western Germany, northern Italy, and northern 
Spain, besides a part of Czecho-Slovakia and Jugo¬ 
slavia. All the surviving Teutonic peoples, except 
those in Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and Britain, 
were thus brought under the sway of one man. 

Charlemagne was a statesman as well as a warrior. 
He divided his possessions into counties, each ruled 
by a count, who was expected to keep order and 
administer justice. The border districts, which lay 
exposed to invasion, were organized into “marks,” 
or “marches,” under the military supervision of mar¬ 
graves (marquises). These officials had so much 
power and lived so far from the royal court that 
Charlemagne appointed special agents, called the 
lord s messengers,” to travel from county to county 
and make sure that his orders were everywhere 
obeyed. It is interesting to compare this system of 
government with that which prevailed in the Persian 
Empire under Darius the Great. 

Charlemagne did something for the promotion of 
education and art among the Franks. He encouraged 
the establishment of schools in the monasteries and 
cathedrals, where the sons of both freemen and serfs 
might be trained for the Christian ministry. He 
formed his court into a “school of the palace,” in 
which learned men from Italy, Spain, and England 
gave instruction to his own children and to those of 
his nobles. He also erected churches and palaces in 
various parts of the Erankish realm. All this civiliz¬ 
ing work formed only a hopeful beginning. Cen¬ 
turies were to pass before education and art in west¬ 
ern Europe fully recovered from the low state to 
which they had fallen during the Germanic invasions. 
Charlemagne, the champion of western Christen- 






































The Holy Roman Empire 161 

dom and the foremost ruler in Europe, seemed to the 
men of his time the rightful successor of the Roman 
emperors. He had their power, and now he was to 
have their name. On Christmas Day, 800, the pope, 
in old St. Peter’s Church at Rome, placed on his 
head a golden crown, while all the people cried out 
with one voice, “Long life and victory to Charles 
Augustus, the great and pacific emperor of the 
Romans, crowned by God!” 

The coronation of Charlemagne was regarded by 
his contemporaries as the restoration or renewal of the 
Roman Empire, more than three hundred years after 
the deposition of Romulus Augustulus. But Charle¬ 
magne’s empire did not include North Africa, Brit¬ 
ain, or much of Spain, or the Roman dominions in 
the East, over which the emperors at Constantinople 
had ruled, and were still to rule, for centuries. It 
did include, on the other hand, extensive territories 
east of the Rhine and north of the Danube, which the 
Romans had never been able to conquer. Moreover, 
the German Charlemagne and his German successors 
on the imperial throne had little in common with the 
old Roman emperors, who spoke Latin, administered 
Roman law, and regarded the Germans as their most 
dangerous foes. Charlemagne’s empire was, indeed, 
largely a ne'w creation, the result of an alliance 
between the Frankish Kingdom and the Roman 
Church. 

The empire of-Charlemagne passed to his only 
legitimate son, a weak ruler, who had difficulty 
enough in keeping it intact. After the lattei s death 
the empire was divided among Charlemagne s three 
grandsons, though only one could hold the imperial 
title. Disputes which soon arose about the inheri- 


1 The Middle Ages 

tance found a temporary settlement in a treaty con¬ 
cluded at Verdun (843). Lothair, the oldest brother, 
received North Italy and a narrow strip of land along 
the valleys of the Rhine and the Rhone, between the 
North Sea and the Mediterranean. Louis and 



Charles, the other brothers, received kingdoms lying 
to the east and west, respectively, of Lothair’s terri¬ 
tory. These arrangements have .historical impor¬ 
tance, because they foreshadowed the future map 
of western Europe. The East Frankish kingdom of 
Louis, inhabited almost entirely by Germans, was to 
develop into modern Germany. The West Frankish 
kingdom of Charles, inhabited mainly by descendants 

































The Holy Roman Empire 163 

of Romanized Gauls, was to become modern France. 
Lothair’s kingdom, however, never became one 
national state. A part of it now belongs to the king¬ 
dom of Italy, and another part survives as Belgium, 
Holland, Luxemburg, and Switzerland. 

The imperial idea was revived, about one hundred 
and fifty years after Charlmagne’s death, by an able 
German ruler, Otto I, often called Otto the Great. 
Otto led his armies across the Alps, went to Rome, 
and had the pope crown him as Roman emperor 
(962). Otto’s dominions were considerably smaller 
than Charlemagne's, since they included only Ger¬ 
many and North Italy. Nevertheless, Otto and the 
emperors 'who followed him asserted vast claims to 
sovereignty in Europe, as the heirs of Charlemagne 
and, through him, of Constantine and Augustus. 
The new empire came subsequently to be styled the 
Holy Roman Empire, the word Holy in its title 
expressing its intimate connection with the Papacy. 
It lived on in some measure for more than eight 
hundred years and did not quite disappear from 
European politics until the opening of the nineteenth 
century. 

The successors of Otto the Great constantly inter¬ 
fered in the affairs of Italy, in order to secure the 
Italian crown and the imperial title. They treated 
that country as a conquered province, which had no 
right to a national life and an independent govern¬ 
ment under its own rulers. At the same time, they 
neglected their German possessions and failed to keep 
their powerful territorial lords in subjection. 
Neither Italy nor Germany, in consequence, became 
a united state, such as was formed in England, France, 
Spain, and other countries in the later Middle Ages. 


The Middle Ages 

The Northmen and the Normans 

Our study of central and western Europe during 
the early Middle Ages has so far been confined to the 
Germans. We have left out of sight another group 
of Teutonic peoples, who lived, as their descendants 
still live, in Denmark, Sweden, and Norway. They 
were the Northmen, or Vikings. Their settlement of 
the Scandinavian countries probably began long 
before the Christian era, but they do not appear in 
history until about the time of Charlemagne. The 
Northmen had taken no part in the earlier invasions. 
During the ninth century, however, the same land 
hunger which drove the German tribes southward 
made them quit their bleak, sterile country and seek 
new homes across the water. The invasions of the 
Northmen may be regarded, therefore, as the last 
wave of that great Teutonic movement which had 
previously inundated western Europe and over¬ 
whelmed the Roman Empire. 

The Northmen were barbarous and heathen, 
untouched either by Graeco-Roman culture or by the 
Christian religion. They started out as raiders and 
fell on the coasts of western Europe. In their shallow 
boats they also found it easy to ascend the rivers and 
reach places far inland. Their attacks did so much 
damage and inspired such great terror that a special 
prayer was inserted in the church services: “From 
the fury of the Northmen, good Lord, deliver usT 
The Northmen eventually planted settlements in some 
of the lands which they visited, including a consider¬ 
able part of Ireland and Scotland. 

The Northmen soon discovered Iceland. Coloni¬ 
zation began in 874. The first settlement of Green- 


The Northmen and the Normans 165 

land was the work of an Icelander, Eric the Red, 
who reached the island toward the end of the tenth 
century. He called the country Greenland, not 
because it was green, but because, as he said, “there is 
nothing like a good name to attract settlers.” Leif 
Ericsson, his son, voyaged still farther westward, and 
about the year 1000 he seems to have visited the coast 
of North America. The Northmen, however, did 
not settle permanently in the New World. 

The Norwegians had taken the leading part in the 
exploration of the West. The Swedes, on account 
of their geographical situation, were naturally the 
most active in expeditions to the East. They overran 
Finland, whose rude inhabitants, the Finns, were of 
Asiatic origin. Sweden ruled Finland throughout 
the Middle Ages. The Swedes also entered Russia 
as early as 862, and their leader, Ruric, established a 
dynasty which reigned over Slavic peoples for more 
than seven hundred years. 

The history of the Northmen in France began in 
911, when a French king granted to a Viking chief¬ 
tain, Rollo, dominion over the region about the lower 
Seine. Rollo agreed to accept Christianity and to 
acknowledge the French ruler. The district ceded 
to Rollo was later called the duchy of Normandy. 
Its Scandinavian settlers, henceforth known as Nor¬ 
mans, soon became thoroughly French in language 
and culture. 

One of the dukes of Normandy, the famous Wil¬ 
liam the Conqueror, added England to the Norman 
dominions, as the result of his victory in the battle of 
Hastings (1066). The island had previously been 
overrun by Jutes, Angles, and Saxons after the middle 
of the fifth century, and by the Danes during the 


The Middle Ages 


166 

ninth, tenth, and eleventh centuries. The Normans 
thus contributed a third Teutonic element to the 
English population. 

During the eleventh century the Normans found 
still another field in which to display their energy 
and daring. They turned southward to the Mediter¬ 
ranean and created in southern Italy and Sicily a 
Norman state known as the kingdom of the Two 
Sicilies. The Normans governed it for only about 
one hundred and fifty years, but under other rulers it 
lasted until the middle of the nineteenth century, 
when the present kingdom of Italy came into exist¬ 
ence. 


Feudalism 

The ninth century in western Europe was a period 
of disorder. Charlemagne for a time had arrested 
the disintegration of society which resulted from the 
invasions of the Germans, and had united their war¬ 
ring tribes under something like a centralized gov¬ 
ernment. But Charlemagne’s empire, as we have 
learned, did not long survive its founder. It soon 
broke up into separate kingdoms. The successors of 
Charlemagne in France, Germany, and Italy enjoyed 
little real authority. They reigned, but did not rule. 
During this dark age it was really impossible for a 
king to govern with a strong hand. The absence of 
good roads or of other easy means of communication 
made it difficult for him to move troops quickly from 
one district to another, in order to quell revolts. Even 
had good roads existed, the lack of ready money 
would have prevented him from maintaining a strong 
army devoted to his interests. Moreover, the king’s 
subjects, as yet not welded into a nation, felt toward 


Feudalism 


167 

him no sentiments of loyalty and affection. They 
cared far less lor their king, of whom they knew 

little, than for their own local lords who dwelt near 
them. 

The decline of the royal authority, from the ninth 
century onward, meant that the chief functions 
of government came to be more and more 
performed by the nobles, who were the great land- 
owners of the kingdom. Under Charlemagne these 
men had been the king’s officials, appointed by him 
and holding office at his pleasure. Under his suc¬ 
cessors they tended to become almost independent 
princes. In proportion as this change was accom¬ 
plished during the Middle Ages, European society 
entered upon the stage of feudalism. 

Feudalism in medieval Europe was not a unique 
development. Parallels to it may be found in other 
parts of the world. Whenever the state becomes 
incapable of protecting life and property, powerful 
men in each locality will themselves undertake this 
duty; they will assume the burden of their own 
defense and of those weaker men who seek their aid. 
Such was the situation in ancient Egypt for several 
hundred years, in medieval Persia, and in modern 
Japan until about two generations ago. 

European feudalism arose and flourished in the 
countries which had formed Charlemagne’s empire, 
that is, in France, Germany, and northern Italy. It 
also spread to Bohemia, Hungary, Poland, and the 
Christian states of Spain. Toward the close of the 
eleventh century the Normans transplanted it into 
England, southern Italy, and Sicily. During the 
twelfth and thirteenth centuries the crusaders intro¬ 
duced it into the kingdoms which they founded in 


The Middle Ages 


168 

the East. Still later, in the fourteenth century, the 
Scandinavian countries became acquainted with 
feudalism. 

The basis of feudal society was usually the landed 
estate. Here lived the feudal noble, surrounded by 
dependents over whom he exercised the rights of a 
petty sovereign. He could tax them; he could require 
them to give him military assistance; he could try 
them in his courts. A great noble even enjoyed the 
privilege of declaring war, making treaties, and coin¬ 
ing money. How, it will be asked, did these rights 
and privileges arise? 

Owing to the decay of commerce and industry, land 
had become practically the only form of wealth in 
the early Middle Ages. The king, who was regarded 
as the absolute owner of the soil, would pay his 
officials for their services by giving them the use of a 
certain amount of land. In the same way, one who 
had received large estates would parcel them out 
among his followers, as a reward for their support. 
Sometimes an unscrupulous noble might seize the 
lands of his neighbors and compel them to become 
his tenants. Sometimes, too, those who owned land in 
their own right might surrender the title to it in favor 
of a noble, who then became their protector. An 
estate in land which a person held of a superior lord, 
on condition of performing some “honorable” service^ 
was called a fief. A fief was inheritable, going at the 
holder’s death to his eldest son. If a man had no 
legal heir, the fief went back to the lord. 

The tie binding the tenant who accepted a fief 
to the lord who granted it was called vassalage. 
Every holder of land was in theory, though not 
always in fact, the vassal of some lord. At the apex 


Feudalism 


169 


of the feudal pyramid stood the king, the supreme 
landlord, who was supposed to hold his land from 
God; below the king stood the greater lords (dukes, 
marquises, counts, barons), with large estates; and 
below them came the lesser lords, or knights, whose 
possessions were considered to be too small for further 
subdivision. 

The vassal owed various services to the lord. In 
time of war he did garrison duty at the lord’s castle 
and joined him in military expeditions. In time of 
peace the vassal attended the lord on ceremonial 
occasions, gave him the benefit of his advice, when 
necessary, and helped him as a judge in trying cases. 
The vassal, under certain circumstances, was also 
required to make money payments. When a new heir 
succeeded to the fief, the lord received from him a 
sum usually equivalent to one year’s revenue of the 
estate. This payment was called a “relief.” Again, 
if a man sold his fief, the lord demanded another 
large sum from the purchaser, before giving his con¬ 
sent to the transaction. Vassals Were also expected to 
raise money for the lord’s ransom, in case he was made 
prisoner of war, to meet the expenses connected with 
the knighting of his eldest son, and to provide a 
dowry for his eldest daughter. Such exceptional pay¬ 
ments went by the name of “aids.” 

The vassal, in return for his services and payments, 
looked to the lord for the protection of life and prop¬ 
erty. The lord agreed to secure him the enjoyment 
of his fief, to guard him against his enemies, and to 
see that in all matters he received just treatment. 

The ceremony of homage symbolized the whole 
feudal relationship. One who proposed to become a 
vassal and hold a fief came into the lord’s presence, 


170 


The Middle Ages 

bareheaded and unarmed, knelt down, placed his 
hands between those of the lord, and promised hence¬ 
forth to become his ‘‘man 1 ’(Latin homo). The lord 
then kissed him and raised him to his feet. After the 
ceremony the vassal placed his hands upon the Bible, 
or upon sacred relics, and swore to remain faithful 
to his lord. This was the oath of “fealty.” The lord 
then gave the vassal some object — a stick, a clod of 
earth, a lance, or a glove — in token of the fief with 
the possession of which he was now “invested.” 

It is clear that the feudal tenure of land, coupled 
with the custom of vassalage, made in some degree 
for security and order. Each noble was attached to 
the lord above him by the bond of personal service 
and the oath of fealty. To his vassals beneath him he 
was at once protector, benefactor, and friend. Unfor¬ 
tunately, feudal obligations were not always strictly 
observed. Both lords and vassals often broke their 
engagements, 'when it seemed profitable to do so. 
Hence they had many quarrels and indulged in con¬ 
stant warfare. But feudalism, despite its defects, 
was better than anarchy. The feudal nobles drove 
back the pirates and hanged the brigands and 
enforced the laws, as no feeble king could do. Feudal¬ 
ism provided a rude form of local government for a 
rude society. 

The outward mark of feudalism was the castle, 
where the lord resided and from which he ruled his 
fief. Defense formed the primary purpose of the 
castle. Until the introduction of gunpowder and 
cannon, the only siege weapons employed were those 
known in ancient times. They included machines for 
hurling heavy stones and iron bolts, battering rams, 
and movable towers, from which the besiegers crossed 



Feudalism 


171 

over to the walls. Such engines could best be used 
on firm, level ground. Consequently, a castle would 
often be erected on a high cliff or hill, or on an island, 
or in the center of a swamp. A castle without such 
natural defenses would be surrounded by a deep 
ditch (the “moat”), usually filled with water. If the 
besiegers could not batter down or undermine the 
massive walls, they adopted the slower method of a 
blockade and tried to starve the garrison into surren¬ 
dering. Ordinarily, however, a well-built, well-pro¬ 
visioned castle was impregnable. 

A visitor to a castle crossed the drawbridge over 
the moat and approached the narrow doorway, which 
was protected by a tower on each side. If he was 
admitted, the iron grating (“portcullis”) rose slowly 
on its creaking pulleys, the heavy, wooden doors 
swung open, and he found himself in the courtyard, 
commanded by the great central tower (“keep”), 
where the lord and his family lived, especially in 
time of war. At the summit of the keep rose a plat¬ 
form whence a sentinel surveyed the country far and 
wide; below, two stories underground, lay the 
prison, dark, damp, and dirty. As the visitor walked 
about the courtyard, he came upon the hall, used as 
the lord’s residence in time of peace, the armory, the 
chapel, the kitchens, and the stables. A spacious castle 
might contain all the buildings necessary for the sup¬ 
port of the lord’s servants and soldiers. 

The nobles regarded the right of waging war on 
one another as their most cherished privilege. A vas¬ 
sal might fight with each of the various lords to whom 
he had done homage, in order to secure independence 
from them, with bishops and abbots whom he dis¬ 
liked for any reason, with his weaker fellow vassals, 


172 


The Middle Ages 


and even with his own vassals. Fighting became 
almost a form of business enterprise, which enriched 
the nobles and their retainers through the sack of 
castles, the plunder of villages, and the ransom of 
prisoners. Every hill became a stronghold and every 
plain, a battle-field. Such private warfare, though 
rarely very bloody, spread havoc throughout the land. 
As the power of the kings increased in western 
Europe, they naturally sought to put an end to the 
constant fighting between their subjects. The Norman 
rulers of Normandy, England, and the Two Sicilies 
restrained their turbulent nobles with a strong hand. 
Peace came later in most parts of the Continent; in 
Germany, “fist right” (the rule of the strongest) pre¬ 
vailed until the end of the fifteenth century. The 
abolition of private warfare was the first step in 
Europe toward universal peace. The second step — 
the abolition of public war between nations—is yet 
to be taken. 

The prevalence of private warfare made the use of 
arms a profession requiring special training. A noble¬ 
man’s son served for a number of years as a squire in 
his father’s castle or in that of some other lord. When 
he became of age and had been drilled in warlike 
exercises, he might be made a knight. The ceremony 
of conferring knighthood was often most elaborate. 
If, however, a squire for valorous conduct received 
knighthood on the battle-field, the accolade by stroke 
of the sword formed the only ceremony. 

As manners softened and Christian teachings began 
to affect feudal society, knighthood developed into 
chivalry. The Church, which opposed the warlike 
excesses of feudalism, took the knight under her wing 
and bade him be always a true soldier of Christ. To 



RHEINSTEIN CASTLE 

Rheinstein Castle, near Bingen, is one of the oldest strongholds bordering the Rhine. After the restoration about 1825 it was used as a summer home 
of German royalty. The walls are hung with medieval armor, the windows are of stained glass, and the furniture is of the Middle Ages. 









Exterior 



Interior 


SANCTA SOPHIA, CONSTANTINOPLE 

Built by Justinian and dedicated on Christmas Day, 538 a.d. The main building is 
rooied over by a great central dome, 107 feet in diameter and 179 feet in height. After the 
Ottoman Turks turned the church into a mosque, a minaret was erected at each of the four 
exterior angles. The outside of Sancta Sophia is somewhat disappointing, but the interior 
with its walls and columns of polished marble, granite, and porphyrv, is magnificent. The 
crystal balustrades, pulpits, and large metal disks are Turkish. 

























l 73 


The Byzantine Empire 

the rude virtues of fidelity to one’s lord and bravery 
in battle, the Church added others. The “good 
knight” was he who respected his sworn word, 
who never took an unfair advantage of another, who 
defended women, children, and orphans against their 
oppressors, and who sought to make justice and right 
prevail in the world. Needless to say, the “good 
knight” appears oftener in romance than in sober 
history. While chivalry lasted, it produced some 
improvement in manners, particularly by insisting on 
the ideal of personal honor and by fostering greater 
regard for women (though only those of the upper 
class). Our modern notion of the conduct befitting a 
“gentleman” goes back in part to the old chivalric 
code. Chivalry, however, expressed simply the senti¬ 
ments of the warlike nobles. It was an aristocratic 
institution. The knight despised and did his best to 
keep in subjection the toiling peasantry, upon whose 
backs rested the real burden of feudal society. 

The Byzantine Empire 

If western Europe during the early Middle Ages 
presented a scene of violence and confusion, while 
the Teutonic peoples were settling in their new homes, 
a different picture was presented in eastern Europe. 
Here the Roman Empire survived and continued to 
uphold, for nearly a thousand years after the depo¬ 
sition of Romulus Augustulus, the Roman tradition 
of law and order. After 476 it is often called the 
“Greek Empire,” since it became more and more 
Greek in character, owing to the loss of the western 
provinces in the fifth century and then of Syria and 
Egypt in the seventh century. The name “Byzantine 
Empire,” which is in common use, most appropri- 


m 


The Middle Ages 


ately describes the empire in still later times, when its 
possessions were reduced to Constantinople (ancient 
Byzantium) and the territory in the neighborhood of 
that city. 

1 he long life of the Byzantine Empire is one of the 
marvels of history. Its vitality appears the more 
remarkable, when one considers that it had no easily 
defensible frontiers, contained many different peoples 



The B\zantine Empire During the Tenth and Eleventh Centuries 


with little in common, and on all sides faced hostile 
states. The empire lasted so long, because of its vast 
wealth and resources, its despotic, centralized gov¬ 
ernment, the strength of its army, and the almost 
impregnable position occupied by Contantinople, 
the capital city. 

The history of the Byzantine Empire shows how 
constantly it was engaged in contests with Oriental 
peoples—first the Persians, then the Arabs, and 
finally the Turks who attacked its domains. By 
resisting the advance of the invaders, the old empire 































The Byzantine Empire 175 

protected the young states of Europe, until they had 
become strong enough to meet and repulse the hordes 
of Asia. This service was not less important than 
that which had been performed by Greece and 
Rome in the contests with the Persians and the 
Carthaginians. 

The merchant ships of Constantinople carried on 
much of the commerce of the Mediterranean and the 
Black Sea. The products of Byzantine industry were 
exchanged at that city for the spices, drugs, and 
precious stones of the East. Byzantine wares also 
found their way into Italy and France and, by way 
of the Russian rivers, reached the heart of eastern 
Europe. Russia, in turn, furnished Constantinople 
with honey, wax, fur, wool, grain, and slaves. A 
traveler of the twelfth century well described the city 
as a metropolis “common to all the world, without 
distinction of country or religion.” 

Many of the emperors at Constantinople were great 
builders. Byzantine architecture became a leading 
form of art. Its most striking feature is the dome, 
which replaces the flat, wooden roof used in the 
churches of Italy. The exterior of a Byzantine church 
is plain and unimposing, but the interior is adorned 
on a magnificent scale. The eyes of the worshipers 
are dazzled by the walls faced with marble slabs of 
variegated colors, by the columns of polished marble, 
jasper, and porphyry, and by the brilliant mosaic 
pictures of gilded glass. The entire impression is one 
of richness and splendor. Byzantine artists, though 
mediocre painters and sculptors, excelled in all kinds 
of decorative work. Their carvings in wood, ivory, 
and metal, embroideries, enamels, miniatures, and * 
mosaics, had a high reputation in medieval Europe. 


176 


The Middle Ages 


The libraries and museums of Constantinople pre¬ 
served classical learning. In the flourishing schools 
of that city the wisest men of the day taught philoso¬ 
phy, law, medicine, and science to thousands of 
pupils. It is true that Byzantine scholars were more 
erudite than original. Impressed by the great treas¬ 
ures of knowledge about them, they found it difficult 
to strike out into new, unbeaten paths. Most students 
were content to make huge collections of extracts and 
notes from the books which antiquity had bequeathed 
to them. Even this task was useful, however, for their 
encyclopedias contained much information which 
otherwise would have been lost. The East thus cher¬ 
ished the productions of classical learning, until the 
time came when the West was ready to receive them 
and to profit by them. 

The division of the Roman Empire and the 
removal of the capital to Constantinople brought 
about the gradual separation of Eastern and Western 
Christianity. The Eastern or Greek Church had for 
its spiritual head the patriarch of Constantinople, 
just as the Western or Roman Church had a head in 
the pope or bishop of Rome. The two churches 
remained in formal unity until 1054, when disputes 
between them on points of doctrine led to their final 
rupture. They have never since united. The mission¬ 
ary zeal of the Greek Church resulted in the conver¬ 
sion of the barbarians who entered southeastern 
Europe during the early Middle Ages. At the pres¬ 
ent time, most of the Christian inhabitants of the 
Balkan Peninsula, including Greeks, Jugoslavs, Bul¬ 
garians, and Rumanians, belong to the Greek Church. 
Its greatest victory was the conversion of the Russians, 
toward the close of the tenth century. With Chris- 


The Arabs and Islam 


177 


tianity all these peoples received the use of letters 
and some knowledge of Roman law and methods of 
government. Constantinople was to them, hence¬ 
forth, such a center of religion and culture as Rome 
was to the Germans. 

The heart of Byzantine civilization always con¬ 
tinued to be Constantinople. It was the largest, most 
populous, and most wealthy place in medieval 
Europe. When London, Paris, and Venice were 
small and mean towns, visitors to Constantinople 
found paved and lighted streets, parks, public baths, 
hospitals, theaters, schools, libraries, museums, beau¬ 
tiful churches, and magnificent palaces, far sur¬ 
passing anything in the West. The renown of Con¬ 
stantinople penetrated even into barbarian lands. 
The Northmen called it Micklegarth, the “Great 
City”; the Russians knew of it as Tsarigrad, the 
“City of the Caesars.” Both names did not lack ap¬ 
propriateness, but its own people best described it as 
the “City guarded by God.” 

The Arabs and Islam, 622-1058 

Christianity was not the only great religion of the 
Middle Ages. Six centuries after it arose came Islam, 
the religion of the Arabs. Islam did for half Asia 
and North Africa what Christianity had begun to do 
for medieval Europe in the work of assimilating the 
peoples and binding them together in one vast com¬ 
munity irrespective of race or language. 

Arabia during ancient times had appeared in his¬ 
tory mainly as a reservoir of Semitic-speaking 
nomads, who drifted into Egypt, along the eastern 
shores of the Mediterranean, and into Babylonia, yet 
always leaving a nucleus of tribes behind them to 


1 7 S 


The Middle Ages 


supply fresh invasions in the future. The interior of 
the peninsula, except for occasional oases, was a 
desert, over which Bedouin tribes wandered with 
their sheep, cattle, horses, and camels. Along the 
southern and western coasts were patches of fertile 
land, whose inhabitants had reached a considerable 
degree of civilization. They practiced agriculture, 
engaged in traffic upon the Red Sea and Indian 
Ocean, and lived in walled towns. Every year for 
four months the Arabs ceased fighting with one 
another and went on a pilgrimage to Mecca. Here 
stood a famous sanctuary called the Kaaba (Cube). 
It contained idols and a small black stone (probably 
a meteorite), which was regarded with particular 
veneration. Although most of the Arabs were idola¬ 
ters, yet some of them believed in Allah, the 
“Unknown God” of the Semites. The many Jews 
and Christians in Arabia at this time also helped to 
spread abroad the conception of one God and thus 
to prepare the way for the prophet of a monotheistic 
religion. 

The founder of Islam, Mohammed, was born at 
Mecca about 570. Having been left an orphan at an 
early age, he received no regular education and for 
some time earned his living as a shepherd and camel 
driver. His marriage to a rich widow enabled him 
to settle down as a prosperous, though still undis¬ 
tinguished, merchant at Mecca. Mohammed, how¬ 
ever, seems always to have been spiritually minded. 
When he was forty years old the call came to him in 
a vision (he said) to preach.a new religion to the 
Arabs. It was very simple, but in its simplicity lay 
its strength: “There is no god but God, and Moham¬ 
med is the prophet of God.” 


The Arabs and Islam 


179 


Mohammed made his first converts in his wife, his 
children, and the friends who knew him best. Then, 
becoming bolder, he began to preach publicly. In 
spite of his eloquence and obvious sincerity, he met 
a discouraging reception. A few slaves and poor 
freemen became his followers, but most people 
regarded him as a madman. Mohammed’s disciples, 
called Moslems, were bitterly persecuted by the citi¬ 
zens of Mecca, who resented the prophet’s attacks on 
idolatry. Finally, Mohammed and his converts took 
refuge in the city of Medina, where some of the 
inhabitants had already accepted his teachings. This 
was the famous Hegira (Flight of the Prophet). 

At Medina Mohammed occupied a position of 
high honor and influence. The people welcomed him 
gladly and made him their chief magistrate. As his 
adherents increased in number, Mohammed began to 
combine fighting with preaching. His military expe¬ 
ditions against the Arab tribes proved very successful. 
Many of the conquered Bedouins enlisted under his 
banner and at length captured Mecca for the Prophet. 
He treated its inhabitants leniently, but threw down 
the idols in the Kaaba. After the submission of 
Mecca the Arabs throughout the peninsula aban¬ 
doned idolatry and accepted the new religion. 

The religion which Mohammed taught is called 
Islam, an Arabic word meaning “surrender” or 
“resignation.” This religion has a sacred book, the 
Koran. It contains the speeches, prayers, and other 
utterances of Mohammed, at various times during his 
career. The doctrines found in the Koran show many 
adaptations from the Jewish and Christian religions. 
Like them, Islam emphasizes the unity of God and 
the immortality of the soul. Like them, also, Islam 


I ^° The Middle Ages 

recognizes the existence of prophets, including Abra¬ 
ham, Moses, and Jesus (whom it regards as a 
prophet), but insists that Mohammed was the last 
and greatest of the prophets. The account of the cre¬ 
ation and fall of man is taken, with variations, from 
the Old Testament. The descriptions of 'the resur¬ 
rection of the dead and the last judgment, and the 
division of the future world into paradise and hell, 
the former for believers in Islam, the latter for those 
who have refused to accept it, were also largely 
borrowed from other religions. 

The Koran imposes on the faithful Moslem five 
great obligations. First, he must recite, at least once 
in his life, aloud, correctly, and with full understand¬ 
ing, the short creed: “There is no god but God, and 
Mohammed is the prophet of God.” Second, he must 
pray five times a day: at dawn, just after noon, before 
sunset, just after sunset, and at the end of the day. 
Before engaging in prayer the worshiper washes face, 
hands, and feet; during the prayer he turns toward 
Mecca and bows his head to the ground. Third, he 
must observe a strict fast, from morning to night, dur¬ 
ing every day of Ramadan, the ninth month of the 
Mohammedan year. Fourth, he must give alms to 
the poor. Fifth, he must, “if he is able,” undertake 
at least one pilgrimage to Mecca. The annual visit of 
tens of thousands of pilgrims to the holy city helps to 
preserve the feeling of brotherhood among Moslems 
all over the world. These five obligations are the 
“pillars” of Islam. 

As a religious system Islam is exceedingly simple. 
It does not provide any elaborate ceremonies of wor¬ 
ship and permits no altars, pictures, or images in the 
mosque. Islam even lacks a priesthood. Every Mos- 


The Arabs and Islam 


181 


lem acts as his own priest. There is, however, an 
official who on Friday, the Mohammedan Sabbath, 
offers up public prayers in the mosque and delivers 
a sermon to the assembled worshipers. All work is 
suspended during this service, but at its close secular 
activities are resumed. 

The Koran furnishes a moral code for the adher¬ 
ents of Islam. It contains several noteworthy prohi¬ 
bitions. The Moslem is not to make images, to 
engage in games of chance, to eat pork, or to drink 
wine. The Koran also inculcates many active virtues, 
including reverence toward parents, protection of 
widows and orphans, charity toward the poor, kind¬ 
ness to slaves, and gentle treatment of the lower 
animals. On the whole, it must be admitted that the 
regulations of the Koran did much to restrain the 
vices of the Arabs and to provide them with higher 
standards of right and wrong. Islam marked a great 
advance over Arabian heathenism. 

Islam was a conquering religion, for it proclaimed 
the righteousness of a “holy war” against unbelievers. 
Pride and greed also combined with fanaticism to 
draw the Arabs out of the desert upon a career of 
conquest. The map shows how large a part of the 
civilized world, from the Indus westward to the 
Pyrenees, came under their sway within about a cen¬ 
tury after the death of Mohammed. The Arabs 
failed, however, to capture Constantinople, which 
endured a desperate siege by the combined Moslem 
army and navy (716-717), and the Franks checked 
their farther advance into western Europe at the 
bloody battle of Tours (732). The Arabs treated 
their subjects with liberality. No massacres and no 
persecutions occurred. The conquered peoples were 


The Middle Ages 


182 

not compelled to accept Islam at the point of the 
sword. In course of time, however, many Christians 
in Syria and Egypt and most of the Zoroastrians in 
Persia embraced the new religion, in order to avoid 
paying tribute and to acquire the privileges of Mos¬ 
lem citizenship. 

The title of caliph, meaning “successor” or “repre¬ 
sentative,” had been first assumed by Mohammed’s 
father-in-law, who was chosen to succeed the Prophet 
as the political and religious head of Islam. Dis¬ 
putes between rival claimants to this office before long 
split up the Arabian Empire into two caliphates, one 
ruling at Bagdad over the Moslems in Asia, the other 
ruling at Cordova in Spain. A third caliphate, with 
its capital at Cairo in Egypt, afterward arose in 
North Africa. The dismemberment and consequent 
weakening of the Arabian Empire ended for a time 
the era of Moslem conquest. 

The Arabs lacked the Roman genius for empire¬ 
building, but they rivaled the Romans as absorbers 
and spreaders of civilization. Their conquests 
brought them into contact with the highly civilized 
peoples of the Near East and along the shores of the 
Mediterranean. What they learned from Greeks, 
Syrians, Persians, Jews, and Hindus they improved 
upon, thus building up a culture which for several 
centuries far surpassed that of western Europe. The 
Arabs practiced farming in a scientific way, under¬ 
stood rotation of crops, employed fertilizers, and 
knew how to graft and produce new varieties of 
plants and fruits. Their manufactures, especially of 
textile fabrics, metal, leather, glass, and pottery, were 
celebrated for beauty of design and perfection of 
workmanship. They did much in mathematics, 



20 ° Longitude We3t 10 ° K - j WZT 0 ^ 2 M _ 30 ° Longitude 40 ° E-t from 60 ° Greenwich 60 ° 














































The Arabs and Islam 183 

astronomy, chemistry, geography, and medicine, 
carrying further the old Greek investigations in these 
branches of science. Arab universities, libraries, and 
observatories, especially in Spain, were visited by 
Christian students, who became acquainted with Mos¬ 
lem learning and helped to introduce it into Italy, 
France, and other countries. Painting and sculpture 
owe little to the Arabs, but their architecture, based 
in part on Byzantine and Persian models, reached a 
high level of excellence. The influence of the Arabs 
upon our civilization is shown by the Arabic origin of 
such words as “muslin,” “damask,” “mattress,” 
“cupola,” “zenith,” and “cipher,” and especially of 
words beginning with the prefix al (the definite 
article in Arabic). In English these include “alge¬ 
bra,” “alkali,” “alcohol,” “almanac,” “alcove,” 
“Aldebaran” (the star), and “alchemy” (whence 
“chemistry”). 

The Arabian Empire in Asia was subdued during 
the eleventh century by the Seljuk Turks, whose 
leader assumed in 1058 the caliph’s political authority 
at Bagdad. The caliph remained the religious head 
of Islam for two centuries longer, until the Mongols 
from central Asia overran the Turkish dominions. 
The coming of the Seljuk Turks into the Near East 
was a very great misfortune, for these barbarians 
did nothing to preserve and extend Arabian cul¬ 
ture. They did begin, however, a new era of 
Moslem conquest, and within a few years they had 
won almost all Asia Minor from the Byzantine 
Empire. The new Turkish menace to Christendom 
induced the emperor at Constantinople to call on the 
chivalry of western Europe for aid, thus inaugu¬ 
rating the crusades. 


184 


The Middle Ages 

The Crusades, 1095-1291 

The crusades, in their widest aspect, may be 
regarded as a renewal of the age-long contest between 
East and West, in which the struggles of Greeks and 
Persians and of Romans and Carthaginians formed 
the earlier episodes. The contest assumed a new 
character when Europe had become Christian, and 
Asia Mohammedan. It was not only two contrasting 
types of civilization, but also two rival world 
religions, which in the eighth century faced each 
other under the walls of Constantinople and on the 
battle-field of Tours. Now, during the twelfth and 
thirteenth centuries, they were to meet again. 
Throughout this period there was an almost continu¬ 
ous movement of crusaders to and from the Moslem 
possessions in Asia Minor, Syria, and Egypt. 

The crusades were first and foremost a spiritual 
enterprise. They sprang from the pilgrimages which 
Christians had long been accustomed to make to the 
scenes of Christ’s life on earth. Men considered it a 
wonderful privilege to visit the place where He was 
born, to kiss the spot where He died, and to kneel in 
prayer at His tomb. The eleventh century saw an 
increased zeal for pilgrimages, and from this time 
traveleis to the Holy Land were very numerous. For 
gieatei security they often joined themselves in com¬ 
panies and marched under arms. It needed little to 
transform such pilgrims into crusaders. The Arab 
conquests had not interrupted the stream of pilgrims, 
for the early caliphs were more tolerant of unbe¬ 
lievers than Christian rulers were of heretics. After 
the conquests of the Seljuk Turks pilgrimages became 
more difficult and dangerous. The stories which 


The Crusades 


185 

floated back to Europe of the outrages on Christian 
pilgrims and shrines awakened an intense desire to 
rescue the Holy Land from “infidels.” 

But the crusades were not simply an expression of 
the simple faith of the Middle Ages. Something 
more than religious enthusiasm sent an unending pro¬ 
cession of soldiers along the highways of Europe and 
over the trackless wastes of Asia Minor to Jerusalem. 
The crusades, in fact, appealed strongly to the warlike 
instincts of the feudal nobles. They saw in an expe¬ 
dition against the East an unequaled opportunity for 
acquiring fame, riches, lands, and power. The Nor¬ 
mans were especially stirred by the prospect of adven¬ 
ture and plunder which the crusading movement 
opened up. By the end of the eleventh century they 
had established themselves in southern Italy and 
Sicily, from which they now looked across the Medi¬ 
terranean for additional lands to conquer. Norman 
knights formed a very large element in several of the 
crusading armies. 

The crusades also attracted the lower classes. The 
misery of the common people in medieval Europe 
was so great that for them it seemed not a hardship, 
but rather a relief, to leave their homes in order to 
better themselves abroad. Famine and pestilence, 
poverty and oppression, drove them to emigrate hope¬ 
fully to the golden East. 

The first crusade, which began in 1095, resulted in 
the capture of Jerusalem and the setting up of several 
small crusaders’ states in Syria. These possessions 
were defended by two orders of fighting monks, 
known as the Hospitalers and the Templars. The 
Christians managed to keep Jerusalem for somewhat 
less than one hundred years. Acre, their last post in 


186 The Middle Ages 

Syria, did not fall to the Moslems until 1291, an 
event commonly regarded as the end of the crusades. 
The Hospitalers still retained the islands of Cyprus 

and Rhodes, which long served as a barrier to Mos¬ 
lem expansion over the Mediterranean. 

The crusades, judged by what they set out to 
accomplish, must be accounted a failure. After two 
centuries of conflict, and after a great expenditure of 
wealth and human lives, the Holy Land remained in 
Moslem hands. The indirect results of the crusades 
were, nevertheless, important. For instance, they 
helped to undermine feudalism. Thousands of nobles 
mortgaged or sold their lands in order to raise money 
for a crusading expedition. Thousands more per¬ 
ished in Syria, and their estates, through failure of 
heirs, reverted to the crown. Moreover, feudal war¬ 
fare, that curse of the Middle Ages, also tended to 
die out with the departure for the Holy Land of so 
many turbulent lords. 

The crusades created a constant demand for the 
transportation of men and supplies, encouraged ship¬ 
building, and extended the market for eastern wares 
in Europe. The products of Damascus, Mosul, 
Alexandria, Cairo, and other great cities were carried 
across the Afediterranean to the Italian seaports, 
whence they found their way into all European lands. 
The elegance of the Orient, with its silks, tapestries, 
precious stones, perfumes, spices, pearls, and ivory| 
was so enchanting that an enthusiastic crusader is 
said to have called it “the vestibule of Paradise.” 

The crusades also contributed to intellectual and 
social progress. . They brought the inhabitants of 
western Europe into close relations with one another, 
with their fellow Christians of the Byzantine Empire,' 


Mongoloid Peoples in Europe 187 

and with the natives of Asia Minor, Syria, and 
Egypt. The intercourse between Christians and 
Moslems was particularly stimulating, because the 
East at this time surpassed the West in civilization. 
The crusaders enjoyed the advantages which come 
from travel in strange lands and among unfamiliar 
peoples. They went out from their castles or villages 
to see great cities, marble palaces, superb dresses, and 
elegant manners; they returned with finer tastes, 
broader ideas, and wider sympathies. The crusades 
opened up a new world. 

Mongoloid Peoples in Europe to 1453 

The extensive steppes of central Asia have formed, 
for thousands of years, the abode of nomadic tribes 
belonging to the Mongoloid or Yellow Race. They 
were ever on the move, with their horses, oxen, sheep, 
and cattle, from one pasturage to another. They 
dwelt in tents and hut-wagons. Severe simplicity was 
their rule of life, for property consisted of little more 
than flocks and herds, clothes, and weapons. Con¬ 
stant practice in riding and scouting inured them to 
fatigue and hardship, and the daily use of arms made 
every man a soldier. When population increased too 
rapidly, or when the steppes dried up and water 
failed, the inhabitants had no course open but to 
migrate farther and farther in search of food. Some 
of them overflowed into the fertile valleys of China, 
until at the close of the third century B. C. the Chinese 
rulers built the Great Wall, fifteen hundred miles in 
length, to keep them out. Others turned westward 
and entered Europe between the Caspian Sea and the 
Ural Mountains, where the Asiatic steppes merge 
into the plains of Russia. 


The Middle Ages 


188 

One such nomadic people were the Huns, whom we 
find north of the Black Sea during the fourth century 
A. D. Roman writers describe their olive skins, little, 
turned-up noses, black, beady eyes, and generally 
ferocious character. They spent much of their time 
on horseback, sweeping over the country like a whirl¬ 
wind and leaving destruction and death in their wake. 
It was the pressure of the Huns from behind which 
drove the Visigoths against the Roman frontiers, thus 
beginning the Germanic invasions. The Huns sub¬ 
sequently crossed the Carpathians and occupied the 
region now called after them Hungary. Their 
leader, Attila, built up a military power, obeyed by 
many barbarous tribes from the Black Sea to the 
Rhine. Attila devastated the lands of the eastern 
emperor almost to the walls of Constantinople and 
then invaded Gaul. In this hour of danger Gallo- 
Romans and Germans united their forces and at the 
famous battle of Chalons (45 0 saved western Europe 
from being submerged under a wave of Asiatic bar¬ 
barism. Attila died soon afterward, his empire went 
to pieces, and the Huns themselves mingled with 
the peoples whom they had conquered. 

The Bulgarians, who were akin to the Huns, made 
their appearance south of the lower Danube in the 
seventh century. For more than three hundred years 
these barbarians, fierce and cruel, formed a menace to 
the Byzantine Empire. They settled in the country 
which now bears their name, accepted Christianity 
from Constantinople, and adopted the speech and 

customs of the Slavs. Modern Bulgaria is essentially 
a Slavic state. 

The Magyars entered central Europe toward the 
close of the ninth century. Again and again they 


Mongoloid Peoples in Europe 189 

swept into Germany, France, and northern Italy, 
ravaging far and wide. It was Otto the Great who 
stopped their raids. The Magyars now retired to 
their lands about the middle Danube, became Roman 
Catholic Christians, and .founded the kingdom of 
Hungary. Modern Hungarians, except for their 
Asiatic language, are thoroughly Europeanized. 

In the thirteenth century came the Mongols proper 
(or Tatars). Their original home seems to have been 
northern Mongolia. The genius of one of their lead- 
ers, Jenghiz Khan, united them into a vast, conquer¬ 
ing host, which to ruthless cruelty and passion for 
plunder added extraordinary efficiency in warfare. 
It may be said with truth of Jenghiz Khan that he 
had the most victorious of military careers and that he 
constructed the most extensive empire known to his- 
tory. The map shows what an enormous stretch of 
territory—Christian, Moslem, heathen, and Buddhist 
—was overrun by Jenghiz Khan and his immediate 
successors. The Mongol Empire was very loosely 
organized, however, and during the fourteenth cen¬ 
tury it fell apart into a number of independent states. 

The location of Russia exposed it to the full force 
of the Mongol attack. The cities of Moscow and 
Kiev fell in quick succession, and before long the 
greater part of the country became a part of the 
Golden Horde, as the western section of the Mongol 
realm was called. The Mongols are usually said to 
have Orientalized the Russian people. It seems clear, 
however, that they did not interfere with the lan¬ 
guage, religion, or laws of their subjects. The chief 
result of the Mongol conquest was to cut off Russia 
from the civilization of the rest of Europe for 
upwards of three centuries. 



190 


The Middle Ages 


In 1227, the year of Jenghiz Khan’s death, a small 
Turkish horde, driven westward from central Asia 
by the Mongol advance, settled in Asia Minor. 
There they enjoyed the protection of their kinsmen, 
the Seljuk Turks, and accepted Islam. Their chief¬ 
tain Othman (whence the name Ottoman) founded 
a new empire. During the first half of the fourteenth 
century the Ottoman Turks firmly established them¬ 
selves in northwestern Asia Minor, along the beauti¬ 
ful shores washed by the Bosporus, the Sea of Mar¬ 
mora, and the Dardanelles. The second half of the 
same century found them in Europe, wresting prov¬ 
ince after province from the feeble hands of the east¬ 
ern emperors. All that remained of the Byzantine 
Empire was Constantinople and a small district in 
its vicinity. 

Only a crusade, on a greater scale than any in the 
past, could have saved Constantinople. No crusade 
occurred, and in 1453 the city fell to Mohammed II. 
The capture of Constantinople is rightly regarded as 
an epoch-making event. It meant the end, once for 
all, of the empire which had served so long as the 
rearguard of Christian civilization, as the bulwark 
of the West against the East. Europe stood aghast 
at a calamity which she had done so little to prevent. 
The Christian powers have been paying dearly, even 
to our own age, for their failure to save Constanti¬ 
nople from Moslem hands. 

Unlike the Bulgarians and the Magyars, the Otto¬ 
man Turks never entered the European family of 
nations. Preserving their Asiatic language and Mos¬ 
lem faith, they remained in southeastern Europe, not 
a transitory scourge, but an abiding oppressor of 
Christian lands. The isolation of the Turks pre- 








































































National States 




191 


vented them from assimilating the higher culture of 
the peoples whom they conquered. They never cre¬ 
ated anything in science, art, literature, commerce, or 
industry. Conquest was the Turks’ one business in 
the world, and when they ceased conquering their 
decline set in. But it was not until the end of the 
seventeenth century that the Turkish Empire entered 
on that downward road which has now led to its 
expulsion from most of the Balkan Peninsula. 

National States during the Later Middle Ages 

Europe in 1914 included twenty national states. 
More have been added as a result of the World War. 
Their present boundaries only in part coincide with 
those fixed by geography. The British Isles, it is 
true, constitute a single political unit, as nature seems 
to have intended, but Ireland has been a very unwill¬ 
ing member of the United Kingdom. The Iberian 
Peninsula, bounded on the north by the Pyrenees, 
seems to form another natural political unit, yet 
within the peninsula there are two independent 
states. On the whole, such great mountain ranges 
as the Alps, Carpathians, and Balkans, and such great 
rivers as the Rhine, Danube, and Vistula, have failed 
to provide permanent frontiers for European states. 

It is still more difficult to trace racial boundaries 
in modern Europe. Peaceful migrations and inva¬ 
sions, beginning in prehistoric times and continuing 
to the present, have led to much mixture of peoples. 
Nor is every European state one in language. France 
includes the district of Brittany, where a Celtic 
speech prevails. Switzerland has French, German, 
and Italian-speaking cantons. In the British Isles 
one may still hear Welsh, Gaelic (in the Highlands), 


1 


192 


The Middle Ages 



Moray Firth 




In.vpr.oess 


Aberdeen 


• ^ yMontrose 
Dundee 

po=-\ Firth of Tay 
'Firth of Forth 


IONA 


•Tweed 


Herwick-on- 


iumfr 1 


R/y/Sy,<% 

mm*. 


Drogheda 


IRISH SEA 


DUBLIN 


ORTH 'j 
kkLESt; 

f 

IgijjneryA 


KopwnrthC' 

A 


Limerick J \ ] 
TJV 8 T ER \ 
* \ v . Waterfori 


Wexford S' 


SOUTH 


/ ' Evesham'.. 

IpPlIpap 


St. David 


'ueenBtowa 


WALES’-^ 

r >iw 

’*!?£»‘'fcCardil 




Bristol;^; 


% Canterbury; 


-iClarendoi 


Pevenseyt^ 


Exeter 6 


,ISLE OF 
WIGHT 


St.Valery/o’ 


English Channel 


Land's End 


Dominions of \Villiam the Conqueror, 1066-87 


Wales; Independence suppressed by Edward I, 
1284; incorporated with England by Henry VIII,! 1536 


Scotland: Independence recognized by Edward SHET land 
111,1328; joined with England in a personal union un- tsLANDS 
~der James I, 1603; legislative union with England,11707 1 

Ireland: Conquest completed by Cromwell, i 649;-- 

united with Great Britain, 1801 

- English Pale at the end of the 15th century 


Donegal 


> \ „ Stamford Bridg® 

> .iV?. . \i 

r Marft.m Moor \l 

f \ 

I \ 

< . \ \ a 

0 Chester \^ 


Oalw 


The British Isles during the Middle Ages 





















































National States 


i 93 


and Irish. The possession of a common language 
undoubtedly tends to bring peoples together and keep 

them together, but it is not an indispensable condition 
of their unity. 

History, rather than geography, race, or even lan¬ 
guage, explains the present grouping of European 
states. When the Christian era opened, all the region 
between the North Sea and the Black Sea and from 
the Mediterranean to the Rhine and the Danube 
belonged to the Roman Empire. This Romanized 
Europe made a solid whole, with one government, 
one law, and one language. Five hundred years 
passed, and Europe under the influence of the Ger¬ 
manic invasions began to split up into a number of 
separate, independent states. The process of state¬ 
making continued throughout the Middle Ages, as 
the result of renewed invasions (principally those of 
the Northmen, Slavs, Arabs, Bulgarians, Magyars, 
Mongols, and Turks). The three strongest states in 
Europe at the end of the medieval period were Eng¬ 
land, France, and Spain. 

The dominions which William the Conqueror and 
his Norman knights won by the sword in 1066 in¬ 
cluded neither Wales, Scotland, nor Ireland. Their 
inhabitants (except in the Scottish Lowlands) were 
Celtic-speaking peoples, whom the Anglo-Saxon 
invaders of England never attempted to subdue. It 
was almost inevitable, however, that in process of 
time the British Isles should come under a single 
government. Unification began with the conquest of 
Wales by Edward I, near the close of the thirteenth 
century. He also annexed Scotland, but his weakling 
son, whom the Scots had defeated in the battle of 
Bannockburn, abandoned all claims to the country. 


194 


The Middle Ages 


It remained independent for the remainder of the 
medieval period. The English first entered Ireland 
in the second half of the twelfth century, but for a 
long time held only a small district about Dublin, 





miens 


Rouen 


mtigaSRst 




wmjrn^ 

i WiB feii 

nH 1 BOURBON ' 

i#?tw lan ° s ‘ 

sEgH^ ^ 


m* I 

jaw* 

Ml 

Sis 


w@mmm 




mediterr 

SEA 


Royal Domain of 
I Hugh Capet, 987 A.D. 

Added to Royal Domain 
I by 1270 A.D. 

Added to Royal Domain 
by 1498 A.D. _ 
+-M-+ Boundary the 
Kingdom of France^ 
d? 


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r^^Calais Fief of Orleans was 

y added to Royal Domain at 
§§|§||P§jfe, s accession of Louis XII in 

■P$? » 98A - D -, 

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OCEAN 


Scale of Miles 


100 


M.-N. WORKS. 


Unification of France during the Middle Ages 


known as the Pale. Ireland by its situation could 
scarcely fail to become an appanage of Great Britain, 
but the dividing sea has combined with differences 
in race, language, and religion, and with English 






































National States 


J 9 S 


misgovernment, to prevent anything like a genuine 
union of the conquerors and the conquered. 

Nature seems to have intended that France should 
play a leading part in European affairs. The geo¬ 
graphical unity of the country is obvious. Mountains 
and seas form its permanent boundaries, except on 
the northeast, where the frontier is not well defined. 
The western coast of France opens on the Atlantic, 
now the greatest highway of the world’s commerce, 
while on the southeast France touches the Mediter¬ 
ranean, the home of classical civilization. This 
intermediate position between two seas helps us to 
understand why French history should form, as it 
were, a connecting link between ancient and modern 
times. 

But the greatness of France has been due, in addi¬ 
tion, to the qualities of the French people. Many 
racial elements have contributed to the population. 
The blood of prehistoric men, whose monuments and 
grave mounds are scattered over the land, still flows 
in the veins of Frenchmen. At the opening of his¬ 
toric times France was chiefly occupied by the Gauls, 
whom Julius Caesar found there and subdued. The 
Gauls, a Celtic-speaking people, formed in later ages 
the main stock of the French nation, but their lan¬ 
guage gave place to Latin after the Roman conquest. 
In the course of five hundred years the Gauls were so 
thoroughly Romanized that they may best be de¬ 
scribed as Gallo-Romans. The Burgundians, Franks, 
and Northmen afterward added a Teutonic element 
to the population, as well as some infusion of 
Teutonic laws and customs. 

France, again, became a great nation because of the 
greatness of her rulers. The old line of French kings, 


196 


The Middle Ages 


descended from Charlemagne, died out in the tenth 
century, and a nobleman named Hugh Capet then 
founded a new dynasty. His accession took place in 
987. The Capetian dynasty was long-lived, and for 
more than three centuries son followed father on the 
throne without a break in the succession. During this 
time the French sovereigns worked steadily to unite 
the feudal states of medieval France into a real nation 
under a common government. 

Hugh Capet’s duchy—the original France—in¬ 
cluded only a small stretch of inland country center¬ 
ing about Paris on the Seine and Orleans on the Loire. 
His election to the kingship did not increase his 
power over the great lords who ruled in Normandy, 
Brittany, Burgundy, and other parts of the country. 
They did homage to the king for their fiefs and per¬ 
formed the usual feudal services, but otherwise 
regarded themselves as independent. The accom¬ 
panying map shows how the French rulers enlarged 
the royal domain, or territory under the king’s con¬ 
trol, until by the end of the fifteenth century the 
unification of France was almost complete. 

Spain in historic times was conquered by the Car¬ 
thaginians, who left few traces of their occupation; 
by the Romans, who thoroughly Romanized the 
country; by the Visigoths, who founded a Teutonic 
kingdom; and lastly by the Moors, who introduced 
Arabian culture and the faith of Islam. The Moors 
never wholly overran a fringe of mountain territory 
in the extreme north of the peninsula. Here arose 
several Christian states, including Leon, Castile, 
Navarre, and Aragon. They fought steadily to 
enlarge their boundaries, with such success that by 
the close of the thirteenth century Moorish Spain 




National States 


197 


had been reduced to the kingdom of Granada. 
Meanwhile, the separate states were coming together, 
and the marriage of Ferdinand of Aragon to Isabella 
of Castile completed the process. Ferdinand and 
Isabella captured Granada in 1492, thus ending 
Moorish rule in Spain. No effort was made by the 
Ottoman Turks, who shortly before had taken Con¬ 
stantinople, to defend this last stronghold of Islam 
in the West. 



Unification of Spain during the Middle Ages 


The complete establishment of feudalism in any 
country meant, as has been shown, its division into 
numerous small communities, each with an army, law 
court, and treasury. A king often became little more 
than a figurehead, equaled or perhaps surpassed in 
power by some of his own vassals. The sovereigns, 
who saw themselves thus stripped of all but the sem¬ 
blance of authority, were naturally anti-feudal, and 





















































































































































198 


The Middle Ages 


during the later Middle Ages they began to get the 
upper hand of their nobles. They formed permanent 
armies by insisting that all military service should 
be rendered to themselves and not to the feudal lords. 
They put down private warfare between the nobles 
and took over the administration of justice. They 
developed a revenue system, with the taxes collected 
by royal officers and deposited in the royal treasury. 
The sovereigns thus succeeded in creating a unified, 
centralized government, which all their subjects 
feared, respected, and obeyed. 

The triumph of royalty over feudalism was in 
many ways a gain for civilization. Feudalism, 
though better than no government at all, did not meet 
the needs of a progressive society. Only strong¬ 
handed kings could keep the peace, punish crime, and 
foster industry and trade. The kings, of course, were 
generally despotic, repressing not only the privileges 
of the nobles but also popular liberties. Despotism 
never became so pronounced in England as on the 
Continent, because the English people during the 
Middle Ages developed a Parliament to represent 
them and the Common Law to protect them from 
royal oppression. They also compelled various sov¬ 
ereigns to issue charters, especially Magna Carta, 
which was secured from King John in 1215. This 
famous document, among other things, provided that 
henceforth no one might be arrested, imprisoned, or 
punished in any way, except after a trial by his equals 
and in accordance with the law of the land. Magna 
Caita contained the germ of legal principles upon 
which Englishmen ever afterward relied for protec¬ 
tion against their rulers. 

The new monarchies, by breaking down feudalism, 


National States 


199 


promoted the growth of national or patriotic senti¬ 
ments. Loyalty to the sovereign and to the state 
which he represented gradually replaced allegiance 
to the feudal lord. Nobles, clergy, city folk, and 
peasants began to think of themselves as one people 
and to have for their “fatherland” the warmest feel¬ 
ings of patriotic devotion. This new nationalism was 
especially well developed in England, France, and 
Spain at the close of the Middle Ages. 


CHAPTER VI 


MEDIEVAL CIVILIZATION 

The Church 

The most important civilizing influence in western 
Europe during the Middle Ages was the Roman 
Church. The Church performed a double task . On 
the one hand, it gave the people religio us instruction 
and watched over their morals ; on the other hand, 
it took an important part in secula r affairs . Priests 
and monks were almost the only persons of education; 
consequently, they controlled the schools, wrote the 
books, framed the laws, acted as royal ministers, and 
served as members of the Parliament or other 
national assembly. The Church thus directed the 
higher life of a medieval community. 

The Church held spiritual sway throughout west¬ 
ern Europe. Italy and Sicily, the larger part of 
Spain, France, the Netherlands, Germany, Austria, 
Bohemia, Hungary, Poland, the British Isles, Den¬ 
mark, Sweden, Norway, and Iceland yielded obedi¬ 
ence to the pope of Rome. 

Membership in the Church was not a matter of 
free choice. All people, except Jews, were required 
to belong to it. A person joined the Church by 
baptism, a rite usually performed in infancy, and 
remained in it as long as he lived. Every one was 
expected to conform, at least outwardly, to the doc¬ 
trines and practices of the Church, and any one 

200 











The Church 201 

attacking its authority was liable to punishment as a 
heretic. 

The existence of one Church in the western world 
furnished a bond of union between European peoples. 
The Chuch took no heed of political boundaries, for 
men of all nationalities entered the ranks of the priest¬ 
hood and joined the monastic orders. Priests and 
monks were subjects of no country, but were “citizens 
of heaven,” as they sometimes called themselves. 
Even differences of language counted for little in the 
Church, since Latin was the universal speech of the 
educated classes. One must think, then, of the 
Church as a great international state, in form a mon¬ 
archy, presided over by the pope, and with its capital 
at Rome. 

The Church taught a belief in a personal God, all¬ 
wise, all-good, all-powerful, to know whom was the 
highest goal of life. The avenue to this knowledge 
lay through faith in the revelation of God, as found in 
the Scriptures. Since the unaided human reason 
could not properly interpret the Scriptures, it was 
necessary for the Church, through her officers, to 
declare their meaning. The Church thus appeared 
as the repository of religious knowledge, as the “gate 
of heaven.” Salvation did not depend only on the 
acceptance of certain beliefs. There were also certain 
acts, called “sacraments,” in which the faithful Chris¬ 
tian must participate, if he was not to be cut off 
eternally from God. They formed channels of 
heavenly grace; they saved man from the conse¬ 
quences of his sinful nature and fil 1 ed him with the 
“fullness of divine life.” Baptism and the Eucharist 
(Lord’s Supper) were the two most important sacra¬ 
ments. Since priests alone could administer them, 


202 


Medieval Civilization 


the Church presented itself as the necessary mediator 
between God and man. 

As soon as Christianity had triumphed in the 
Roman Empire, thus becoming the religion of the 
rich and powerful as well as of the poor and lowly, 
more attention was devoted to the conduct of worship. 
Magnificent church buildings were often erected. 
Their architects seem to have followed as models the 
basilicas, or public halls, which formed so familiar 
a sight in Roman cities. Church interiors were 
adorned with paintings, mosaic pictures, images of 
saints, and the figure of the cross. Lighted candles 
on the altars and the burning of fragrant incense lent 
an additional impressiveness to worship. Beautiful 
prayers and hymns were composed. Organs and 
church bells also came into use during the Middle 
Ages. 

Many cases, which to-day would be decided 
according to the civil or criminal law of the State, 
in the Middle Ages came before ecclesiastical courts. 
Since marriage was considered a sacrament, the 
Church took upon itself to decide what marriages 
were lawful. It forbade the union of first cousins, 
of second cousins, of godparents and godchildren. It 
refused to sanction divorce, for whatever cause, if 
both parties at the time of marriage had been bap¬ 
tized Christians. The Church dealt with inheritance 
under wills, for a man could not make a legal will 
until he had confessed, and confession formed part 
of the sacrament of penance. All contracts made 
binding by oaths came under Church jurisdiction, 
because an oath was an appeal to God. The Church 
tried those who were charged with any sin against 
religion, including heresy, blasphemy, the taking of 


► 









































































The Church 


203 


interest (usury), and the practice of witchcraft. 
Widows, orphans, and the families of pilgrims and 
crusaders also enjoyed the special protection of the 
Church. 

Disobedience to the regulations of the Church 
might be followed by excommunication. This was a 
coercive measure which cut off the offender from 
Christian fellowship. He could neither attend 
religious services nor enjoy the sacraments so neces¬ 
sary to salvation. If he died excommunicate, his 
body could not be buried in consecrated ground. By 
the law of the State he lost all civil rights and for¬ 
feited all his property. No one might speak to him, 
feed him, or shelter him. Such a terrible penalty, it 
is well to point out, was usually imposed only after 
the sinner had received a fair trial and had spurned 
all entreaties to repent. Excommunication still 
retains an important place among the spiritual 
weapons of the Church. 

We may now consider the attitude of the Church 
toward the social and economic problems of the 
Middle Ages. In regard to private warfare, the prev¬ 
alence of which formed one of the greatest evils of 
the time, the Church, in general, cast its influence 
on the side of peace. It forbade attacks on all defense¬ 
less people, including priests, monks, pilgrims, mer¬ 
chants, peasants, and women. It also established a 
“Truce of God,” which required all men to cease 
fighting from Wednesday evening to Monday morn¬ 
ing of each week, in Lent, and on various holy days. 
The truce would have given western Europe peace 
for about two-thirds of the year, but it was never 
strictly observed, except in limited areas. The feudal 
lords could not be deterred from warring with one 


204 


Medieval Civilization 


another, even though they were threatened with the 
torments of hell. The Church did not carry its 
pacific policy so far as to condemn warfare against 
heretics and infidels. Christians believed it a religious 
duty to exterminate these enemies of God. 

The Church was distinguished for charitable work. 
It distributed large sums to the needy. It also multi¬ 
plied hospitals, orphanages, and asylums. Medieval 
charity, however, was very often injudicious. The 
problem of removing the causes of poverty seems 
never to have been raised; and the indiscriminate 
giving multiplied, rather than reduced, the number 
of beggars. 

Neither slavery nor serfdom, into which slavery 
gradually passed, was ever pronounced unlawful by 
pope or Church council. The Church condemned 
slavery only when it was the servitude of a Christian 
in bondage to a Jew or an infidel. Abbots, bishops, 
and popes possessed slaves and serfs. The serfs of 
some wealthy monasteries were counted by thousands. 
The Church, nevertheless, encouraged the free¬ 
ing of bondmen as a meritorious act and always 
preached the duty of kindness and forbearance 
toward them. 

The Church also helped to promote the cause of 
human freedom by insisting on the natural equality 
of all men in the sight of God. '“The Creator,” wrote 
one of the popes, “distributes his gifts without regard 
to social classes. In his eyes there are neither nobles 
nor serfs.” The Church gave practical expression to 
this attitude by opening the priesthood and monastic 
orders to every one, whether high-born or low-born, 
whether rich or poor. Naturally enough, the Church 
attracted to its service the keenest minds of the age. 


The Clergy 


205 


The Clergy 

Some one has said that in the Middle Ages there 
were just three classes of society: the nobles who 
fought; the peasants who worked ; and the clergy who 
prayed. An account of the clergy naturally begins 
with the parish priest, who had charge of a parish, 
the smallest division of Christendom. He was the 
only Church officer who came continually into touch 
with the common people. He baptized, married, and 
buried his parishioners. He celebrated mass at least 
once a week, heard confessions, and imposed penance. 
He watched over all their deeds on earth and pre¬ 
pared them for the life to come. 

A group of parishes formed a diocese, over which 
a bishop presided. It was his business to look after 
the property belonging to the diocese, to hold the 
ecclesiastical courts, to visit the clergy, and to see that 
they did their duty. Since the Church held many 
estates on feudal tenure, the bishop was usually a 
territorial lord, owing a vassal’s obligations to the 
king or to some powerful noble for his land, and him¬ 
self ruling over vassals in different parts of the coun¬ 
try. As symbols of his power and dignity, the bishop 
wore on his head the miter and carried the pastoral 
staff, or crosier. Above the bishop stood the arch¬ 
bishop. In England, for example, there were two 
archbishops, one residing at York and the other at 
Canterbury. The latter, as “Primate of All Eng¬ 
land ” was the highest ecclesiastical dignitary in the 
country. A church which contained the official 
throne of a bishop or archbishop was called a cathe¬ 
dral. It was ordinarily the largest and most magnifi¬ 
cent church in the diocese. 


206 


Medieval Civilization 


The earlier monks were hermits. They devoted 
themselves, as they believed, to the service of God, 
by retiring to the desert for prayer, meditation, and 
bodily mortification. A life shut off from all contact 
with one’s fellows is difficult and beyond the strength 
of ordinary men. The mere human need for social 
intercourse gradually brought the hermits together, at 
first in small groups and then in larger communities, 
or monasteries. The next step was to give the scat¬ 
tered monasteries a common organization and gov¬ 
ernment. Those in western Christendom gradually 
adopted the regulations which St. Benedict (about 
529) drew up for the guidance of his monastery at 
Monte Cassino in Italy. 

The monks obeying the Benedictine Rule formed 
a corporation, presided over by an abbot, who held 
office for life. Every candidate for admission took 
the vow of obedience to the abbot. Any man, rich 
or poor, noble or peasant, might enter the monastery 
after a year’s probation; having once joined, how¬ 
ever, he must remain a monk for the rest of his days. 
The monks lived under strict discipline. They could 
not own any property; they could not go beyond the 
monastery walls without the abbot’s consent; and they 
followed a regular round of worship, reading from 
the Bible, private prayer, and meditation. For most 
of the day, however, they worked hard with their 
hands, doing the necessary washing and cooking for 
the monastery, raising the necessary supplies of vege¬ 
tables and grain, and performing all the other tasks 
required to maintain a large establishment. This 
emphasis on labor, as a religious duty, was a char¬ 
acteristic feature of western monasticism. “To labor 
is to pray” became its motto. 


The Clergy 20 7 

The civilizing influence of the Benedictine monks 
during the early Middle Ages can scarcely be over¬ 
emphasized. A monastery was often at once a model 
farm, an inn, a hospital, a school, and a library. By 
the careful cultivation of their lands the monks set 
an example of good farming wherever they settled. 
They entertained pilgrims and travelers at a period 
when western Europe was almost destitute of inns. 
They performed many works of charity, feeding the 
hungry, healing the sick who were brought to their 
doors, and distributing their medicines freely to those 
who needed them. In their schools they trained 
both boys who wished to become priests, and those 
who intended to lead active lives in the world. The 
monks, too, were the only scholars of the age. By 
copying the manuscripts of classical authors, they pre¬ 
served valuable books that would otherwise have been 
lost. By keeping records of the most striking events 
of their time, they acted as chroniclers of medieval 
history. They also served as missionaries among the 
heathen peoples of Europe. 

Yet even the Benedictine system had its limitations. 
The monks lived apart from their fellow-men and 
sought chiefly the salvation of their own souls. A new 
conception of the religious life arose early in the 
thirteenth century, with the coming of the friars. 
Their aim was social service. They devoted them¬ 
selves to the salvation of others. The foundation of 
the orders of friars was the work of two men, St. 
Francis in Italy and St. Dominic in Spain. The Fran¬ 
ciscans and Dominicans resembled each other in many 
ways. They went on foot from place to place, and 
wore coarse robes tied round the waist with a rope. 
They possessed no property, but lived on the alms 


2o8 


Medieval Civilization 


of the charitable. They were also preachers, who 
spoke to the people, not in Latin, but in the common 
language of each country which they visited. The 
Franciscans worked especially in the slums of the 
cities; the Dominicans addressed themselves rather 
to educated people and the upper classes. As time 
went on, both orders relaxed the rule of poverty and 
became very wealthy. They still survive, scattered 
all over the world and engaged chiefly in teaching and 
missionary activity. 

The friars by their preaching and ministrations did 
a great deal to call forth a religious revival in Europe 
during the thirteenth century. In particular, they 
helped to strengthen the papal' authority. Both orders 
received the sanction of the pope; both'enjoyed many 
privileges at his hands; and both looked to him for 
direction. The pope employed them to raise money, 
to preach crusades, and to impose excommunications.' 
The Franciscans and Dominicans formed, in fact the 
agents of the Papacy. 


I HE PAPACY 

The claim of the Roman bishops to spiritual 
supremacy over the Christian world had a double 
asis. Certain passages in the New Testament, where 
bt Peter is represented as the rock on which the 
Church is built and the doorkeeper of the kingdom 
of heaven, appear to indicate that he was regarded by 
Christ as the chief of the Apostles. Furthermore, a 
well-established tradition made St. Peter the founder 
o the Roman Church and its first bishop. It was 
then argued that he passed to his successors, the popes, 
all his rights and dignity. As St. Peter was the first 
among the Apostles, so the popes were to be the first 


— 



Exterior 



Interior 

ST. PETER’S, ROME 

St. Peter’s, begun in 1506 a.d., was completed in 1667, according to the designs of Pra- 
mante, Raphael, Michelangelo, and other celebrated architects. It is the largest church in 
the world. The central aisle, nave, and choir measure about 600 feet in length; the great 
dome, 140 feet in diameter, rises to a height of more than 400 feet. A double colonnade en¬ 
circles the piazza in front of the church. The Vatican is seen to the right of St. Peter’s. 






























































































209 


The Papacy 

among bishops. Such was the doctrine of the Petrine 
supremacy, expressed as far back as the second cen¬ 
tury, strongly asserted by many popes during the 
Middle Ages, and maintained to-day by the Roman 
Church. 

The name pope seems at first to have been 
applied to all priests as a title of respect and affection. 
The Greek Church still continues this use of the 
word. In the West it gradually came to be reserved 
to the bishop of Rome as his official title. The pope 
was addressed in speaking as “Your Holiness:” His 
exalted position was further indicated by the tiara, 
or headdress with triple crowns, worn by him in pro¬ 
cessions. He went to solemn ceremonies sitting in a 
chair supported on the shoulders of his guard. He 
gave audience from an elevated throne, and all who 
approached him kissed his feet in reverence. 

The pope was the supreme lawgiver of the Church. 
His decrees might not be set aside by any other per¬ 
son. He made new laws in the form of “bulls” and by 
his “dispensations” could in particular cases set aside 
old laws, such as those forbidding cousins to marry 
or monks to obtain release from their vows. The pope 
was also the supreme judge of the Church, for all 
appeals from the lower ecclesiastical courts came 
before him for decision. Finally, the pope was the 
supreme administrator of the Church. He confirmed 
the election of bishops, deposed them when necessary, 
or transferred them from one diocese to another. 
The pope also exercised control over the monastic 
orders and called general councils of the Church. 

The authority of the pope was commonly exercised 
by “legatees,” whom he sent out as his representa¬ 
tives at the various European courts, These officers 


210 


Medieval Civilization 


kept the pope in close touch with the condition of the 
Church in every part of western Europe. A similar 
function is performed in modern times by the papal 
ambassadors known as “nuncios.” 

The pope was assisted in governing the Church by 
the cardinals, who formed a board, or “college.” At 
first they were chosen only from the clergy of Rome 
and the vicinity, but in course of time the pbpe opened 
the cardinalate to prominent churchmen in all coun¬ 
tries. The number of cardinals is now fixed at 
seventy, but the college is never full, and there are 
always several vacant hats,” as the saying goes. The 
cardinals, in the eleventh century, received the right 
of choosing a new pope. A cardinal’s dignity is indi¬ 
cated by the red hat and scarlet robe which he wears 
and by the title of “Eminence” applied to him. 

The pope was a temporal sovereign, ruling over 
Rome and the States of the Church. These posses¬ 
sions included during the Middle Ages the greater 
part of central Italy. The pope did not lose them 
altogether until the formation of the present Italian 

Kingdom, in the second half of the nineteenth 
century. 

To support the business of the Papacy and to main¬ 
tain the splendor of the papal court required a large 
annual income. This came partly from the States 
of the Church, partly from the gifts of the faithful, 
and partly from the payments made by the abbots,’ 
bishops, and archbishops when the pope confirmed 
their election to office. Still another source of reve¬ 
nue consisted of “Peter’s pence,” a tax of a penny on 
each hearth. It was collected every year in England 
and in some Continental countries until the time of 
the Reformation. The modern “Peter’s pence” is a 


Country Life 


21 I 


voluntary contribution made each year by Roman 
Catholics in all parts of the world. 

Rome, the Eternal City, from which in ancient 
times the known world had been ruled, formed in the 
Middle Ages the capital of the Papacy. Few traces 
now remain of the medieval city. Old St. Peter’s 
Church, where Charlemagne was crowned emperor, 
gave way in the sixteenth century to the ''world- 
famous structure that now occupies its site. The 
Lateran Palace, which for more than a thousand years 
served as the residence of the popes, has also disap¬ 
peared, its place being taken by a new and smaller 
building. The popes now live in the splendid palace 
of the Vatican, adjoining St. Peter’s. 

Country Life 

Civilization has always had its home in the city. 
Nothing marks more strongly the backwardness of 
the early Middle Ages than the absence of the 
flourishing cities which had filled western Europe 
under the Roman Empire. The Teutonic invasions 
led to a gradual decay of manufacturing and com¬ 
merce and hence of the cities in which those activities 
centered. As urban life declined, the mass of the 
population came to live more and more in isolated 
rural communities. This was the great economic 
feature of the early Middle Ages. 

An estate in land, when owned by a lord and occu¬ 
pied by dependent peasants, was called a manor. It 
naturally varied in size according to the wealth of its 
lord. Every noble had at least one manor; great 
nobles might have several manors, usually scattered 
throughout the country; and even the king depended 
upon his many manors for the food supply of the 


212 


Medieval Civilization 


court. England, during the period following the 
Norman Conquest, contained more than nine thou¬ 
sand of these manorial estates. 

The lord reserved for his own use a part of the 
arable land of the manor. This was his “demesne,” 
or domain. The rest of the land he allotted to the 



Plan of Hitchin AIanor, Hertfordshire 


Lord’s demesne, diagonal lines. 

Meadow and pasture lands, dotted areas. 
Normal holding of a peasant, black strips. 


peasants who were his tenants. They cultivated their 
holdings in common, according to the “open-field” 
system. A farmer, instead of having his land in one 
compact mass, had it split up into a large number of 
small strips (usually an acre or a half-acre) scattered 
over the manor, and separated, not by fences or 
hedges, but by banks of unplowed turf. The appear¬ 
ance of a manor, when under cultivation, has been 





















Country Life 


213 


likened to a vast checkerboard or a patchwork quilt. 
The reason for the intermixture of strips seems to 
have been to make sure that each farmer had a por¬ 
tion both of the good land and of the bad. It is 
obvious that this arrangement compelled all the peas¬ 
ants to labor according to a common plan. A man 
had to sow the same kinds of crops as his neighbors, 
and to till and reap them at the same time. Agricul¬ 
ture, under such circumstances, could not fail to be 
unprogressive. 

Farmers did not know how to enrich the soil by 
the use of fertilizers and a proper rotation of crops. 
Consequently, they divided all the arable land into 
three parts, one of which was sown with wheat or rye, 
and another with oats or barley, while the third was 
allowed to lie fallow (uncultivated) for a year, so 
that it might recover its fertility. Eight or nine 
bushels of grain represented the average yield of an 
acre. Farm animals were small, for scientific breed¬ 
ing had not yet begun. Farm implements, also, were 
few and clumsy. It took five men a day to reap and 
bind the harvest of two acres. 

Besides his holding of arable land, which in Eng¬ 
land averaged about thirty acres, each peasant had 
certain rights over the non-arable land of the manor. 
He could cut a limited amount of hay from the 
meadow. He could turn so many farm animals— 
cattle, geese, swine—on the waste. He also enjoyed 
the privilege of taking so much wood from the forest 
for fuel and building purposes. A peasant’s holding, 
which also included a house in the village, thus 
formed a complete outfit. 

The peasants on a manor lived close together in one 
or more villages. Their small, thatch-roofed, and 



214 


Medieval Civilization 


one-roomed houses were grouped about an open space 
(the green ), or on both sides of a single, narrow 
street. The only important buildings were the parish 
church, the parsonage, a mill, if a stream ran through 
the manor, and possibly a blacksmith’s shop. The 

population of one of these communities often did not 
exceed one hundred souls. 

A village in the Middle Ages had a regular staff 
of officials. Fiist came the headman or reeve, who 
iepresented the peasants in their dealings with the 
lord of the manor. Next came the constable or 
beadle, whose duty it was to carry messages around 
the village, summon the inhabitants to meetings, and 
enforce the orders of the reeve. Then there were the 
pound-keeper, who seized straying animals; the 
watchman, who guarded the flocks at night; and the 
carpentei, blacksmith, and miller. These officials, 
in return for their services, received an allowance 
of land, which the villagers cultivated for them. 

Perhaps the most striking feature of a medieval 
village was its self-sufficiency. The inhabitants tried 
to produce at home everything they required, in order 
to avoid the uncertainty and expense of trade. The 
land gave them their food; the forests provided them 
with wood for houses and furniture. They made 
their own clothes of flax, wool, and leather. Their 
meal and flour were ground at the village mill, and 
at the village smithy their farm implements were 
manufactured. The chief articles which needed to 
be brought from some distant market included salt, 
used to salt down farm animals killed in autumn, iron 
for various tools, and millstones. Cattle, horses’, and 
surplus giain also formed common objects of 
exchange between manors. 


Serfdom 


215 


Life in a medieval village was rude and rough. 
The peasants labored from sunrise to sunset, ate 
coarse fare, lived in huts, and suffered from frequent 
pestilences. They were often the helpless prey of 
the feudal nobles. If their lord happened to be a 
quarrelsome man, given to fighting with his neigh¬ 
bors, they might see their land ravaged, their cattle 
driven off, and their village burned, and might them¬ 
selves be slain. Even under peaceful conditions the 
narrow, shut-in life of the manor could not be other¬ 
wise than degrading. 

Yet there is another side to the picture. If the 
peasants had a just and generous lord, they probably 
led a fairly comfortable existence. Except when 
crops failed, they had an abundance of food, and 
possibly wine or cider to drink. They shared a com¬ 
mon life in the work of the fields, in the sports of the 
village green, and in the services of the parish church. 
They enjoyed many holidays; it has been estimated 
that, besides Sundays, about eight weeks in every year 
were free from work. Festivities at Christmas, 
Easter, and May Day, at the end of ploughing and 
the completion of harvest, also relieved the monotony 
of labor. 

Serfdom 

A medieval village usually contained several classes 
of laborers. There might be a number of free men, 
who paid a fixed rent, either in money or produce, 
for the use of their land. A few slaves might also be 
found in the lord’s household or at work on his 
demesne. By this time, however, slavery had about 
died out in western Europe. Most of the peasants 
were serfs. 


2l6 


Medieval Civilization 


A slave belonged to his master; he was bought and 
sold like other chattels. A serf had a higher position, 
for he could not be sold apart from the land nor could 
his holding be taken from him. He was fixed to the 
soil. On the other hand, a serf ranked lower than a 
free man, because he could not change his abode, nor 
marry outside the manor, nor bequeath his goods, 
without the permission of his lord. 

The serf did not receive his land as a gift; for the 
use of it he owed certain duties to his master. These 
took chiefly the form of personal services. He must 
labor on the lord's demesne for two or three days 
each week, and at specially busy seasons, such as 
ploughing and harvesting, he must do extra work. 
At least half his time was usually demanded by the 
lord. The serf had also to make certain payments, 
either in money or more often in grain, honey, eggs,' 
or other produce. \\ hen he ground the wheat or 
pressed the grapes which grew on his land, he 
must use the lord’s mill or the lord’s wine-press, and 
pay the customary charge. 

Serfdom developed during the later centuries of 
the Roman Empire and in the early Middle Ages. 
Many seifs seem to have been descendants of the ten¬ 
ants, both free and servile, who had worked the great 
Roman estates in western Europe. The serf class was 
also recruited from the ranks of free Germans, whom 
the disturbed conditions of the time induced to seek 
the protection of a lord. 

Serfdom, being a system of forced labor, was not 
very piofitable to the lord, and it was irksome to his 
dependents. After the revival of trade and industry 
in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries had brought 
more money into circulation, the lord discovered how 


Serfdom 


217 


much better it was to hire men to work for him, 
instead of depending on serfs who shirked their tasks 
as far as possible. The latter, in turn, were glad to 
pay the lord a fixed sum (rent) for the use of the 
land, since now they could devote themselves entirely 
to its cultivation. Both parties gained by an arrange¬ 
ment which converted the manorial lord into a land¬ 
lord and the serf into a free tenant-farmer. 

The emancipation of the peasantry was hastened, 
strangely enough, as the result of perhaps the most 
terrible calamity that has ever afflicted mankind. 
About the middle of the fourteenth century a pesti¬ 
lence of Asiatic origin, now known to have been the 
bubonic plague, reached the West. The Black Death, 
so called because among its symptoms were dark 
patches all over the body, moved steadily across 
Europe. The way for its ravages had been prepared 
by the unhealthful conditions of ventilation and 
drainage in villages and towns. After attacking 
Greece, Sicily, Italy, Spain, France, and Germany, 
the plague entered England in 1349, and within less 
than two years swept away probably half the popu¬ 
lation. 

The pestilence in England, as in other countries, 
caused a great scarcity of labor. For want of hands 
to bring in the harvest, crops rotted on the ground, 
while sheep and cattle, with no one to c&re for them, 
strayed through the deserted fields. The free peas¬ 
ants who survived demanded and received higher 
wages. Even the serfs, whose labor was now more 
valued, found themselves in a better position. The 
lord of a manor, in order to keep his laborers, would 
often allow them to substitute money payments for 
personal services. When the serfs secured no conces- 


2l8 


Medieval Civilization 


sions, they frequently took to flight and hired them¬ 
selves to the highest bidder. All this went on despite 
numerous statutes passed by Parliament ordering 
workmen to accept the old wages and forbidding 
them to migrate in search of better employment. 

The emancipation of the peasantry continued 
throughout the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. 
Serfdom by 1500 had virtually disappeared in Italy, 
in parts of France and Germany, and in England. 
Some less favored countries retained serfdom much 
longer. Prussian, Austrian, and Russian serfs did not 
secure freedom until the nineteenth century. 

City Life 

The great economic feature of the later Middle 
Ages v as the growth of cities. Developing trade, 
commerce, and manufactures led to the increase of 
wealth, the growth of markets, and the substitution 
of money payments for those in produce or services. 
Flourishing cities arose, as in the days of the Roman 
Empire, freed themselves from the control of the 
nobles, and became the homes of liberty and 
democracy. 

A number of medieval cities stood on the sites, and 
even within the walls, of Roman municipalities. Par¬ 
ticularly in Italy, southern France, and Spain, and 
also in the Rhine and Danube regions, it seems that 
some ancient cities had never been entirely destroyed 
during the Teutonic invasions. They preserved their 
Roman names, their streets, aqueducts, amphithea¬ 
ters, and churches, and possibly vestiges of their 
Roman institutions. Among them were such impor¬ 
tant centers as Milan, Florence, Venice, Lyons Mar¬ 
seilles, Paris, Vienna, Cologne, London, and York. 


219 


City Life 

Many medieval cities were new foundations. Some 
began as small communities which increased in size 
because of exceptional advantages of situation. A 
place where a river could be forded, where two roads 
met, or where a good harbor existed, would naturally 
become the resort of traders. Some, again, started as 
fortresses, behind whose ramparts the peasants took 
refuge when danger threatened. A third group of 
cities developed from villages on the manors. A 
thriving settlement was pretty sure to spring up near 
a monastery or castle, which offered both protection 
and employment to the common people. 

The city at first formed a part of the feudal system. 
It rose upon the territory of a lord and owed obedi¬ 
ence to him. The citizens ranked not much higher 
than serfs, though they were traders and artisans 
instead of farmers. They enjoyed no political rights, 
for their lord collected the taxes, appointed officials, 
kept order, and punished offenders. In short, the 
city was not free. As its inhabitants became more 
numerous and wealthy, they refused to submit to 
oppression. Sometimes they won their freedom by 
hard fighting; more often they purchased it, perhaps 
from some noble who needed money to go on a cru¬ 
sade. In France, England, and Spain, where the 
royal power was strong, the cities only obtained 
exemption from their feudal burdens. In Germany 
and Italy, on the other hand, the weakness of the 
central government permitted many cities to secure 
complete independence. One of them survives to 
this day as the little Italian republic of San Marino, 
and three others—Hamburg, Bremen, and Liibeck— 
entered the German Empire in the nineteenth cen¬ 
tury as separate commonwealths. 



220 


Medieval Civilization 


The free city had no room for either slaves or 
serfs. All servile conditions ceased inside its walls. 
The rule prevailed that any one who had lived in 
a city for the term of a year and a day could no longer 
be claimed by a lord as his serf. This rule found 
expression in the famous saying, “Town air renders 
free.” The freedom of the cities naturally attracted 
many immigrants to them. There came into exist¬ 
ence a middle class of city people, between the 
ciergy and nobles on the one side and the peasants on 
the other side what the French call the bourgeoisie. 
The middle class, or bourgeoisie, distinguished as it 
was for wealth, intelligence, and enterprise, exerted 
an ever greater influence on European affairs. 

The visitor approaching a medieval city through 
miles of open fields saw it clear in the sunlight, unob¬ 
scured o\ coal smoke. It looked like a fortress from 
without, with walls, towers, gateways, drawbridges, 
and moat. Beyond the fortifications he would see, 
huddled together against the sky, the spires of the 
churches and the cathedral, the roofs of the larger 
houses, and the dark, frowning mass of the castle. 

The general impression was one of wealth and 
strength and beauty. 

The visitor would not find things so attractive 
within the walls. The streets were narrow, crooked, 
and ill-paved, dark during the day because of the 
overhanging houses, and without illumination at 
night. There were no open spaces or parks except a 
small market-place. The whole city was cramped 
by its walls, which shut out light, air, and view, and 
prevented expansion into the neighboring country. 
Medieval London, for instance, covered an area of 
less than one square mile. 


221 


City Life 

A city in the Middle Ages lacked sanitary arrange¬ 
ments. The only water supply came from polluted 
streams and wells. Sewers and sidewalks were quite 
unknown. People piled up their refuse in the back¬ 
yard or flung it into the street, to be devoured by the 
dogs and pigs which served as scavengers. The holes 
in the pavement collected all manner of filth, and the 
unpaved lanes, in wet weather, became quagmires. 
The living were crowded together in many-storied 
houses, airless and gloomy; the dead were buried 
close at hand in crowded churchyards. Such unsani¬ 
tary conditions must have been responsible for much 
of the sickness that was prevalent. The high death 
rate could only be offset by a birth rate correspond- 

high, and by the constant influx of country 
people. 

The inhabitants of the city took a just pride in 
their public buildings. The market-place, where 
traders assembled, often contained a beautiful cross 
and sometimes a market-hall to shelter goods from 
the weather. Not far away arose the city-hall for the 
transaction of public business and the holding of civic 
feasts. The hall might be crowned by a high belfry 
with an alarm bell to summon the citizens to mass 
meetings. There were also a number of churches 
and abbeys and, if the city was the capital of a 
bishop’s diocese, an imposing cathedral. 

The small size of medieval cities—few included 
as many as ten thousand inhabitants—simplified the 
problem of governing them. The leading merchants 
usually formed a council presided over by a head 
magistrate, the burgomaster or mayor, who was 
assisted by aldermen. In some places the guilds chose 
the officials and managed civic affairs. These associa- 


222 


Medieval Civilization 


tions had many functions and held a most important 
place in city life. It will be necessary, therefore, to 
describe them in some detail. 

Civic Industry 

The Anglo-Saxon word “guild,” which means “to 
pay, ’ came to be applied to a club or society whose 
members made contributions for some common pur¬ 
pose. This form of association is very old. Some of 
the guilds of imperial Rome had been established in 
the age of the kings, while not a few of those which 
flourish to-day in China and India were founded 
befoie the Christian era. Guilds existed in Conti¬ 
nental Europe as early as the time of Charlemagne, 
but they did not become prominent until after the 
crusades. 

A guild of merchants grew up when those who 
bought and sold goods in any place united to protect 
their own interests. The membership included many 
artisans, as well as professional traders, for in medie¬ 
val times a man might sell in the front room of his 

shop the goods which he and his assistants made in 
the back rooms. 

The chief duty of a merchant guild was to preserve 
to its own members the monopoly of trade within a 
town. Strangers and non-guildsmen could not buy or 
sell theie except under conditions imposed by the 
guild. They must pay the town tolls, confine their 
dealings to guildsmen, and as a rule sell only at 
wholesale. They were forbidden to purchase wares 
which the townspeople wanted for themselves, or to 
set up shops for retail trade. They enjoyed more 

freedom at the numerous fairs, which were intended 
to attract outsiders. 


223 


Civic Industry 

After a time the traders and artisans engaged in a 
particular occupation began to form associations of 
their own. Thus arose the craft guilds, composed of 
weavers, shoemakers, bakers, tailors, carpenters, and 
so on, until almost every form of industry had its 
separate organization. The names of the various 
occupations came to be used as the surnames of those 
engaged in them, so that to-day we have such common 
family names as Smith, Cooper, Fuller, Potter, 
Chandler, and many others. The number of craft 
guilds in an important city might be very large. Lon¬ 
don and Paris at one time each had more than one 
hundred, and Cologne in Germany had as many as 
eighty. The members of a particular guild usually 
lived in the same street or quarter of the city, not 
only for companionship, but also for better super¬ 
vision of their labor. 

Just as the merchant guilds regulated town trade, 
so the craft guilds had charge of town industry. No 
one could engage in any craft without becoming a 
member of the guild which controlled it and sub¬ 
mitting to the guild regulations. A man’s hours of 
labor and the price at which he sold his goods were 
fixed for him by the guild. He might not work else¬ 
where than in his shop, because of the difficulty of 
supervising him, nor might he work by artificial 
light, lest he turn out badly finished goods. Every¬ 
thing made by him was carefully inspected to see if 
it contained shoddy materials or showed poor work¬ 
manship. Failure to meet the test meant a heavy fine 
or perhaps expulsion from the guild. The industrial 
monopoly possessed by the craft guild thus gave some 
protection to both producer and consumer. 

Full membership in a guild was reached only by 


224 


Medieval Civilization 


degrees. A boy started as an apprentice, that is, a 

learner. He paid a sum of money to his master and 

agreed to serve him for a fixed period, usually seven 

years. The master, in turn, promised to provide the 

apprentice with food, lodging, and clothing, and to 

teach him all the secrets of the craft. At the end of 

his period of service the apprentice had to pass an 

examination by the guild. If he was found fit, he 

then became a journeyman and worked for daily 

wages. As soon as he had saved enough money, he 

might set up as a master in his own shop. A master 

was at once workman and employer, laborer and 
capitalist. 

The guilds had their charitable and religious 
aspects. Each one raised large benefit funds for the 
relief of members of their widows and orphans. Each 
one had its private altar in the cathedral, or often its 
own chapel, where masses were said for the repose 
of the souls of deceased members, and where on the 
day of its patron saint religious services were held. 
The guild was also a social organization, with fre¬ 
quent meetings for a feast in its hall or in some inn 
The guilds in some cities entertained the people with 
an annual play or procession. It is clear that the mem¬ 
bers of a craft guild had common interests and shared 
a common life. 

As the craft guilds prospered and increased in 
wealth, they tended to become exclusive organiza¬ 
tions. Membership fees were raised so high that few 
could afford to pay them, while the number of 
apprentices that a master might take was strictly 
limited. It also became increasingly difficult for 
journeymen to rise to the station of master; they often 
remained wage-earners for life. The mass of work- 


225 


Civic Industry 

men could no longer participate in the benefits of the 
guild system. In the eighteenth century most of 
the guilds lost their monopoly of industry, and in the 
nineteenth century they gave way to trade unions. 

Civic Trade 

Nearly every town of any consequence had a 
weekly or semi-weekly market, which was held in the 
market-place or in the churchyard. Marketing often 
occurred on Sunday. Outsiders who brought cattle 
and produce for sale in the market were required to 
pay tolls, either to the town authorities or sometimes 
to a neighboring nobleman. These market dues sur¬ 
vive in the octroi collected at the gates of some 
European cities. 

People in the Middle Ages did not believe in unre¬ 
stricted competition. It was thought wrong for any 
one to purchase goods outside of the regular market 
(“forestalling”) or to purchase them in larger quanti¬ 
ties than necessary (“engrossing”). A man ought not 
to charge for a thing more than it was worth, or to 
buy a thing cheap and sell it dear. The idea pre¬ 
vailed that goods should be sold at their “just price,” 
which was not determined by supply and demand, 
but by an estimate of the cost of the materials and the 
labor that went into their manufacture. Laws were 
often passed fixing this “just price,” but it was as 
difficult then as now to prevent the “cornering of the 
market” by shrewd and unscrupulous traders. 

Many towns also held fairs once or twice a year. 
The fairs often lasted for a month or more. They 
were especially necessary in medieval Europe, be¬ 
cause merchants did not keep large quantities or many 
kinds of goods on their shelves, nor could intending 


226 


Medieval Civilization 


puichasers afford to travel far in search of what they 
wanted. A fair at an English town, such as Stour¬ 
bridge, Winchester, or St. Ives, might attract Vene¬ 
tians and Genoese with silk, pepper, and spices of the 
East, Flemings with fine cloths and linens, Spaniards 
with iron and wine, Norwegians with tar and pitch 
from their forests, and Baltic merchants with furs, 
amber, and salted fish. The fairs, by fostering com¬ 
merce, helped to make the various European peoples 
better acquainted with one another. 

Commerce in western Europe had almost disap¬ 
peared as a result of the Teutonic invasions and the 
establishment of feudalism. What little commercial 
intercourse there was encountered many obstacles. A 
merchant who went by land from country to country 
might expect to find bad roads, few bridges, and poor 
inns. Goods were transported on pack-horses instead 
of wagons. Highway robbery was so common that 
travelers always carried arms and usually united in 
bands for better protection. The feudal lords, often 
themselves not much more than highwaymen, 
demanded tolls at every bridge and ford and on every 
road. If the merchant proceeded by water, he must 
face, in addition to the ordinary hazards of wind 
and wave, the danger from the ill-lighted coasts and 
from attacks by pirates. No wonder commerce 
languished in the early Middle Ages and for a long 
time lay chiefly in the hands of Byzantines and Arabs. 

Even during the dark centuries that followed the 
end of the Roman Empire, some trade with the Ori¬ 
ent had been carried on by the cities of Italy and 
southern France. The crusades, which brought East 
and West face to face, greatly increased this trade 
The Mediterranean lands first felt the stimulating 


Civic Trade 


227 


effects of intercourse with the Orient, but eventually 
the commercial revival extended to other parts of 
Europe. 

Before the discovery of the Cape of Good Hope 



Trade Routes Between Northern and Southern Europe in the 

Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries 


the spices, drugs, incense, carpets, tapestries, porce¬ 
lains, and gems of India, China, and the East Indies 
reached the West by three main routes. All had been 












































228 


Medieval Civilization 


used in ancient times. The central and most impor¬ 
tant route led up the Persian Gulf and Tigris River 
to Bagdad, from which city goods went by caravan 
to Antioch or Damascus. The southern route reached 
Cairo and Alexandria by way of the Red Sea and the 
Nile. By taking advantage of the monsoons, a mer¬ 
chant ship could make the voyage from India to 
Egypt in about three months. The northern route, 
entirely overland, led to ports on the Black Sea and 
thence to Constantinople. It traversed high mountain 
passes and long stretches of desert, and hence was 
profitably used only for the transport of valuable 
articles small in bulk. The conquests of the Ottoman 
Turks greatly interfered with the use of this route by 
Christians after the middle of the fifteenth century. 

Oriental goods, upon reaching the Mediterranean, 
could be transported by water to northern Europe! 
Every year the Venetians sent a fleet loaded with 
eastern products to Bruges in Flanders, a city which 
was the most important depot of trade with Germany, 
England, and Scandinavia. Bruges also formed the 
terminus of the main overland route leading from 
Venice over the Alps and down the Rhine. Many 
other commercial highways also linked the Mediter¬ 
ranean with the North Sea and the Baltic. 

Cathedrals and Universities 

For several centuries after the barbarian invasions 
architecture made little progress in western Europe,’ 
outside of Italy, which was subject to Byzantine influ¬ 
ence, and Spain, which was a center of Arabian cul¬ 
ture. The architectural revival dates from the time 
of Charlemagne, with the adoption of the style of 
building called Romanesque, because it made use of 






THE CAMPANILE AND DOGE’S PALACE, VENICE 

The famous Campanile or bell tower of St. Mark’s Cathedral collapsed in 1902 a . d . A new tower, faithfully copying the old monument, was 
completed nine years later. The Doge’s Palace, a magnificent structure of brick and marble, is especially remarkable for the graceful arched colonnades 
forming the two lower stories. The blank walls of the upper story are broken by a few large and richly-ornamented windows. 



















REIMS CATHEDRAL 


The cathedral of Notre Dame at Reims in northwestern France stands on the site where 
Clovis was baptized by St. Remi. Here most of the French kings were consecrated with holy 
oil by the archb'shops of Reims. Except the west front, which was built in the fourteenth 
century, the cathedral was completed by the end of the thirteenth century. The towers 
267 feet high, were originally designed to reach .,94 feet. The facade, with its three arched 
portals, exquisite rose window, and “gallery of the kings,” is justly celebrated. The cathedral 

“ walls> . roof - statl,es - anfi windows - has been terribly damaged by the German bombard¬ 
ment during the late war. 






































Cathedrals and Universities 


229 


vaulting, d omes, and the round arch, as in Roman 
structures. 

The style of building called Gothic (after the 
Goths) prevailed during the later Middle Ages. It 
formed a natural development from Romanesque. 
The architects of a Gothic cathedral wished to retain 
the va ulted ceiling, but at the same time to do away 
with thick, solid walls, which had so little window 
space as to leave the interior of the building dark 
and gloomy. They solved this problem, in the first 
place, by using a great number of stone ribs, which 
rested on columns and gathered up the weight of the 
ceiling. Ribbed vaulting made possible higher ceil¬ 
ings, spanning wider areas, than in Romanesque 
churches. In the second place, the columns support¬ 
ing the ribs were themselves connected by means of 
flying buttresses with stout piers of masonry outside 
the walls of the church. These walls, relieved from 
the pressure of the ceiling, now became a mere screen 
to keep out the weather. They could be built of light 
materials and filled with high and wide windows. 
Gothic builders also substituted for the Roman round 
arch the lighter and more graceful pointed arch, 
which had long been known and used by the Arabs. 

The laborers of the Gothic architect were admir¬ 
ably seconded by those of other artists. The sculptor 
cut figures of men, animals, and plants in the utmost 
profusion. The painter covered vacant wall spaces 
with brilliant frescoes. The wood-carver made 
exquisite choir stalls, pulpits, altars, and screens. 
Master workmen filled the stone tracery of the 
windows with stained glass unequaled in coloring by 
the finest modern work. The interior of a Gothic 
cathedral, with its vast nave rising in swelling arches 









230 


Medieval Civilization 


to the vaulted roof, its clustered columns, its glowing 
windows, and infinite variety of ornamentation, forms 
the most awe-inspiring sanctuary ever raised by man. 

The universities developed from cathedral and 
monastic schools, where boys were trained to become 
priests or monks. The teaching, which lay entirely in 
the hands of the clergy, was elementary in character. 
Pupils learned enough Latin grammar to read 
religious books, if not always to understand them, 
and enough music to follow the services of the 
Church. They also studied arithmetic by means of 
the awkward Roman notation, received a smattering 
of geometry and astronomy^ and sometimes of such 
subjects as geography, law, and philosophy. Besides 
these Church schools, others were maintained by 
guilds and by private benefactors. 

There are about fifty European universities dating 
from the later Middle Ages. They arose, as it were, 
spontaneously. Western Europe in the eleventh and 
twelfth centuries felt the thrill of a great intellectual 
revival. It was stimulated by intercourse with the 
highly cultivated Arabs in Spain, Sicily, and the 
East, and with the Greek scholars of Constantinople 
during the crusades. The desire for instruction 
became so general that the elementary schools could 
not satisfy it. Other schools were then opened in the 
cities, and to them flocked eager learners from every 
quarter. Such was the origin of the University of 
Paris, which at one time had more than five thousand 
students. It furnished the model for the English 
university of Oxford, as well as for the learned insti¬ 
tutions of Scotland, Denmark, Sweden, and Germany. 
Those in Italy and Spain were modeled, more or less 
upon the university of Bologna. * 









Cathedrals and Universities 


231 


The word “university” meant at first simply a 
union or association. In the Middle Ages all artisans 
belonged to guilds, and when teachers and pupils 
associated themselves for study they naturally copied 
the guild form of organization. After passing part 
of his examination, a student (apprentice) became a 
“bachelor of arts” (journeyman) and might teach 
certain elementary subjects to those beneath him. 
Upon the completion of the full course—usually six 
years in length—the bachelor took his final examina¬ 
tion and, if successful, received the coveted degree of 
“master of arts.” 

The members of a university usually lived in a 
number of colleges. These seem to have been at first 
little more than lodging-houses, where poor students 
were cared for at the expense of some benefactor. As 
the colleges increased in wealth, through the gifts 
made to them, they became centers of instruction 
under the direction of masters. At Oxford and Cam¬ 
bridge, where the collegiate system has been retained 
to the present time, each college possesses separate 
buildings and enjoys the privilege of self-government. 

A university of the Middle Ages did not need an 
expensive collection of libraries, laboratories, and 
museums. Its only necessary equipment consisted of 
lecture rooms for the professors. Not even benches 
or chairs were required, for students often sat on the 
straw-strewn floors. The high price of manuscripts 
compelled professors to give all instruction by lec¬ 
tures. This method of teaching has been retained in 
modern universities, because even the printed book is 
a poor substitute for a scholar’s inspiring words. 

The studies in a medieval university were grouped 
under the four faculties of arts, theology, law, and 




232 


Medieval Civilization 


medicine. The first-named faculty taught the “seven 
liberal arts,” that is, grammar, rhetoric, logic, arith¬ 
metic, music, geometry, and astronomy. Theology, 
law, and medicine then, as now, were professional 
studies, taken up after the completion of the arts 
course. Owing to the constant movement of students 
from one university to another, each institution tended 
to specialize in one or more fields of learning. Thus, 
lean's came to be noted for theology, Montpellier, 
Padua, and Salerno for medicine, and Orleans’ 
Bologna, and Salamanca for law. ’ 

National Languages during the Later 

Middle Ages 

Latin conti nued to be a n international language 
throughout the medieva l period. The Roman 

urch used it for papal bulls and other documents. 
Prayers were recited, hymns were sung, and some¬ 
times sermons were preached in Latin. It was also 
the language of men of culture everywhere in Chris¬ 
tendom. University professors lectured in Latin 
students spoke Latin, lawyers addressed judges in 
Latin and the merchants in different countries wrote 
Latin letters to one another. All learned books were 
composed in Latin until the close of the sixteenth 
century This practice has not yet been entirely aban¬ 
doned by scholars. 

A Ea< i h . Eu , ro P ean country during the later Middle 
gcs had also its own national tongue. The Romance 



i . . .. a Avuiiiaiic 

languages, including modern French, Italian, Span 
ish, Portuguese, and Rumanian, were derived fron 


naturally 







233 


National Languages 

lacked the elegance of the literary Latin used by 
Caesar, Cicero, and other ancient authors. The differ¬ 
ence between the written and spoken forms of the 
language became more marked from the fifth century 
onward, in consequence of the barbarian inroads. 
Gradually in each country new and vigorous tongues 
arose, related to, yet different from, the old classical 
Latin in pronunciation, grammar, and vocabulary. 

The popular Latin of the Gallo-Romans gave rise 
to two groups of languages in medieval France. The 
first was used in the southern part of the country; it 
was called Provengal (from Provence). The second 
was spoken in the north, particularly in the region 
about Paris. The unification of the French kingdom 
under Hugh Capet and his successors gradually 
extended the speech of northern France over the 
entire country. Modern French contains less than a 
thousand words introduced by the German invaders 
of Gaul, while the words of Celtic origin are even 
fewer in number. Nearly all the rest are derived 
from Latin. 

The Teutonic peoples who remained outside what 
had been the limits of the Roman world continued to 
use their native tongues during the Middle Ages. 
These have grown into modern German, Dutch, 
Flemish and the various Scandinavian languages 
(Danish, Norwegian, Swedish, and Icelandic). All 
Teutonic languages in their earliest known forms 
show unmistakable traces of a common origin. 

Britain was the only Roman province in the west 
of Europe where a Teutonic language took root and 
maintained itself. Here the rough, guttural speech 
of the Anglo-Saxons completely drove out the popu¬ 
lar Latin. In course of time Anglo-Saxon underwent 


23 + 


Medieval Civilization 


various changes. Christian missionaries, from the 
seventh century onward, introduced many new Latin 
terms for church offices, services, and observances. 
The Danes, besides contributing some place-names, 
gave us that most useful word are, and also the habit 
of using to before an infinitive. The coming of the 
Normans deeply affected Anglo-Saxon. Norman- 
rench influence helped to make the language 
simpler, by ridding it of the cumbersome declensions 
and conjugations which it had in common with all 
Teutonic tongues. Many new Norman-French words 
also crept in, as the hostility of the English people 
toward their conquerors disappeared. 

Anglo-Saxon, by the middle of the thirteenth cen¬ 
tury, had so far developed that it may now be called 
English. In the poems of Chaucer (about 1340- 
1400), especially his Canterbury Tales, English 
wears quite a modern look, though the reader is 
sometimes troubled by the old spelling and by certain 
words not now in use. The changes in the grammar 
of the language have been so extremely slight since 
the end of the fifteenth century that any Englishman 
of ordinary education can read without difficulty a 
book written more than four hundred years ago. Eng- 
ish has been, and still is, extremely hospitable to new 
wor s, so that its vocabulary has grown very fast by 
the adoption of terms from Latin, French, and other 
tongues. These have immensely increased the expres¬ 
siveness of English, while giving it a position midway 

between the very different Romance and Teutonic 
languages. 

Our survey of medieval civilization has been 
largely confined to the later Middle Ages—the 
period from about 1000 to about 1500. When the 


2 35 


National Languages 

Arabs had brought the culture of the Near East to 
Spain and Sicily, when the Northmen after their 
wonderful expansion had settled down in Normandy, 
England and other countries, and when the peoples 
of western Europe, whether as pilgrims or crusaders, 
had visited Constantinople and the Holy Land, men’s 
minds received a wonderful stimulus. The intel¬ 
lectual life of Europe was “speeded up,” and the 
way was prepared for the even more rapid advance 
of civilization in the sixteenth century, as the Middle 
Ages passed into the Renaissance. 



CHAPTER VII 

THE RENAISSANCE 

Revival of Learning and Art in Italy 

The French word Renaissance means Rebirth or 
Revival. It is a convenient term for all the changes 
in society, law, and government, in science, philoso¬ 
phy, and religion, and in literature and art which 
transformed medieval civilization into that of modern 
times. The Renaissance, just because of its transi¬ 
tional character, cannot be exactly dated. In general, 
it covers the sixteenth century. Many Renaissance 
movements, however, began much earlier. Among 
those which we have already noticed were the rise of 
str ong national st ates, replacing feudalism as a system 
of government, the growth of cities, the decline and 
ultimate extinction of serfdom, and the commercial 
progress which attended and followed the crusades. 
The Renaissance thus appears as a gradual develop¬ 
ment out of the Middle Ages, not as a sudden revo- 
lution. 

The name Renaissance applied, at first, only to the 
rebirth or revival of man’s interest in the civilization 
of classical antiquity. Italy was the original home 
of this Renaissance. There it first appeared, there 
it found widest acceptance, and there it reached its 
highest development. From Italy the Renaissance 

spread beyond the Alps, until it had made the round 
of western Europe. 

Italy was a land particularly favorable to the 











Revival of Learning and Art in Italy 2 37 

growth of learning and the arts. The great cities of 
Milan, Pisa, Genoa, Florence, Venice, and many 
others had early succeeded in throwing off their 
feudal burdens and had become independent, self- 
governing communities. Democracy flourished in 
them, as in the old Greek city-states. Noble birth 
counted for little; a man of ability and ambition 
might rise to any place. The fierce party conflicts 
within their walls stimulated mental activity and 
helped to make life full, varied, and intense. Their 
widespread trade and thriving manufactures made 
them prosperous. Wealth brought leisure, bred a 
taste for luxury and the refinements of life, and gave 
means for the gratification of that taste. People 
wanted to have about them beautiful pictures, statu¬ 
ary, furniture, palaces, and churches; and they 
rewarded richly the artists who could produce such 
things. It is not without significance that the birth¬ 
place of the Italian Renaissance was democratic, 
industrial, and wealthy Florence. 

The literature of Rome did not entirely disappear 
in western Europe after the Teutonic invasions. The 
monastery and cathedral schools of the Middle Ages 
had nourished devoted students of ancient books. 
The Benedictine monks labored zealously in copying 
the works of pagan as well as Christian authors. The 
rise of universities made it possible for the student to 
pursue a fairly extended course in Latin literature at 
more than one institution of learning. Reverence for 
the classics finds constant expression in the writings 
of the Italian poet Dante (1265-1321), whose Divine 
Comedy, describing an imaginary visit to hell, purga¬ 
tory, and paradise, ranks among the world’s master¬ 
pieces of literature. Petrarch (1304-1374) did much 




238 


The Renaissance 


to spread a knowledge of Latin authors. He traveled 
widely in Italy, trance, and other countries, search¬ 
ing everywhere for ancient manuscripts and employ¬ 
ing copyists to transcribe those which he discovered or 
borrowed. Petrarch, however, knew almost no 
Greek. His copy of Homer, it is said, he often kissed, 
though he could not read it. Renewed interest in the 
literature of Greece dates from the fifteenth century, 
when the advance of the Ottoman Turks, culminating 
in the capture of Constantinople, sent a stream of 
Greek exiles into Italy. Some of them were learned 
men, and their conversation and lectures greatly 
stimulated the study of Greek in the West. 

The languages and literatures of ancient Greece 
and Rome opened up a new world of thought and 
fancy to scholars. They were delighted by the fresh, 
original, and liberal ideas which they discovered in 
the pages of Homer, Plato, Cicero, and other ancient 
writers. Humanism, as the study of the classics was 
called, before long gained an entrance into university 
courses, displacing theology and philosophy as the 
chief subject of instruction. From the universities ' 
it descended to the lower schools, where Greek and 
especially Latin—the “humanities”—still hold a 
prominent place in the curriculum. 

The revival of learning was immensely stimulated 
when books printed on linen paper by movable type 
made their appearance. Paper-making originated in 
China, and the Arabs introduced the art into Spain 
and Italy during the Middle Ages. A long time 
elapsed, however, before paper became abundant and 
cheap enough to serve as a substitute for papyrus and 
parchment. Movable type had been used for several 
centuries in the Far East, and in Europe several 


Revival of Learning and Art in Italy 239 

printers have been credited with its invention. A 
German, Johann Gutenberg of Mainz, seems to have 
set up the first practical printing press with movable 
type about 1450, and from it issued the first printed 
book. This was a Latin translation of the Bible. 
Printing met an especially warm welcome in Italy, 
where people felt so keen a desire for reading and 
instruction. By the end of the fifteenth century Ven¬ 
ice alone had more than two hundred printing 
presses. 

Printed books could be multiplied far more rapidly 
than manuscripts copied by hand. They could also 
be far more accurate than manuscripts, for, when an 
entire edition was printed from the same type, mis¬ 
takes in the different copies were eliminated. Fur¬ 
thermore, the invention of printing destroyed the 
monopoly of learning possessed by the universities ' 
and people of wealth. Books were now the pos¬ 
session of the many, not the luxury of the few. Any¬ 
one who could read had opened to him the gateway 
of knowledge; he became a citizen, henceforth, of the 
republic of letters. Printing, which made possible 
popular education, public libraries, and ultimately 
cheap newspapers, thus became a force emancipating 
mankind from bondage to ignorance. 

Gothic architecture, with its pointed arches, flying 
buttresses, and traceried windows, never struck deep 
roots in Italy. The architects of the Renaissance went 
back to Greek temples and Roman domed buildings 
for their models, just as the humanists went back to 
Greek and Latin literature. Long rows of Ionic or 
Corinthian columns, spanned by round arches, 
became again the prevailing architectural style. Per¬ 
haps the most important feature of Renaissance archi- 


240 


The Renaissance 


tecture was the use of the dome, instead of the vault, 
for the roofs of churches. The majestic cupola of 
St. Peter’s at Rome has become the parent of many 
domed structures in the Old and in the New World. 
Architects, however, did not limit themselves to 
churches. The magnificent palaces of Florence, as 
well as some of those in Venice, are monuments of 
the Renaissance era. 

The development of architecture naturally stim¬ 
ulated other arts. Italian sculptors began to copy the 
ancient bas-reliefs and statues preserved in Rome 
and other cities. The greatest of Renaissance sculp¬ 
tors was Michelangelo (1475-1564). Though a 
Florentine by birth, he lived for most of his life in 
Rome. Michelangelo also won fame in architecture 
and painting. The dome of St. Peter’s was finished 
after his designs, while the frescoes on the ceiling of 
the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican display his genius 
as a painter. 

Italian painting began in the service of the Church 
and long remained religious in character. Artists 
usually chose subjects from the Bible or the lives of 
the saints. They did not trouble themselves to secure 
correctness of costumes, but painted ancient Jews, 
Greeks, and Romans in the garb of Italian gentlemen! 
Many of their pictures were frescoes, that is, the col¬ 
ors were mixed with water and applied to the plaster 
walls of churches and palaces. After the process of 
mixing oils with the colors was discovered, pictures 
on wood or canvas (easel paintings) became common. 
Italian painters excelled in portraiture. They were 
less successful with landscapes. A list of the “Old 
Masters of Italian painting always includes the 
names of Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, and Titian. 










GHIBERTI’S BRONZE DOORS AT FLORENCE 

The second or northern pair of bronze doors of the baptistery at Florence. Completed by 
Lorenzo Ghiberti in 1452 a.d., after twenty-seven years of labor. The ten panels represent 
scenes from Old Testament history. Michelangelo pronounced these magnificent creations 
worthy to be the gates of paradise. 

































































































Revival of Learning and Art beyond Italy 241 

Another modem art, that of music, arose in Italy 
during the Renaissance. In the sixteenth century, 
the three-stringed rebeck received a fourth string and 
became the violin, the most expressive of all musical 
instruments. A forerunner of the pianoforte also 
appeared in the harpsichord. A papal organist and 
choir-master, Palestrina (1526-1594), was the first of 
the great composers. He gave music its fitting place 
in worship by composing melodious hymns and 
masses still sung in Roman Catholic churches. The 
oratorio, a religious drama set to music but without 
action, scenery, or costume, had its beginning at this 
time. The opera, however, was little developed until 
the eighteenth century. 

Revival of Learning and Art beyond Italy 

Italy had fostered the revival of learning by recov¬ 
ering the long-buried treasures of the classics and by 
providing means for their study. Scholars in Ger¬ 
many, France, and England, who now had the aid of 
the printing press, continued the intellectual move¬ 
ment and gave it widespread currency. The fore¬ 
most of these scholars was Erasmus (1466-1536), a 
native of Rotterdam in Holland. His travels and 
extensive correspondence brought him in touch with 
many learned men of the day. The most important 
achievement of Erasmus was an edition of the New 
Testament in the original Greek, with a Latin ver¬ 
sion. This work led to a better understanding of the 
New Testament and also prepared the way for trans¬ 
lations of the Scriptures into the vernacular tongues. 

The renewed interest in classical studies for a while 
retarded the development of national languages and 
literatures in Europe. Humanists regarded only 


242 


The Renaissance 


Latin and Greek as worthy of attention. But a 
return to the vernacular was bound to come. The 
common people, who understood little Latin and less 
Greek, had now learned to read, and the printing 
press had multiplied books. Many works, composed 
in Italian, Spanish, French, English, and other na¬ 
tional languages, soon made their appearance. This 
revival of the vernacular meant that henceforth Eu¬ 
ropean literature would be more creative and original 
than was possible when writers merely imitated or 
translated the classics. The sixteenth century, we re¬ 
member, was the age of the Spaniard, Cervantes, 
whose Don Quixote is still so popular, of the French¬ 
man, Montaigne, author of many essays delightful in 
style and full of wit and wisdom, and of the English¬ 
man, William Shakespeare, whose genius transcended 
national boundaries and made him a citizen of the 
world. 

Italian architects found a cordial reception in 
France, Spain, the Netherlands, and other countries, 
where they introduced Renaissance styles of building 
and ornamentation. The celebrated palace of the 
Louvre in Paris, which is used to-day as an art gallery 
and museum, dates from the sixteenth century. At 
this time French nobles began to replace their somber 
feudal dwellings by elegant country houses. Renais¬ 
sance sculpture also spread beyond I taly and through¬ 
out Europe Painters in northern countries at first 
followed Italian models, but afterward produced 
masterpieces of their own. 

The Middle Ages were not by any means ignorant 
of science, but its study received a great impetus when 
the Renaissance brought before educated men all that 
the Greeks and Romans had done in mathematics, 


Revival of Learning and Art beyond Italy 243 

physics, astronomy, medicine, and other subjects. 
The invention of printing also fostered the scientific 
revival by making it easy to spread knowledge abroad 
in every land. The pioneers of Renaissance science 
were Italians, but students in France, England, Ger¬ 
many, and other countries soon took up the work of 
enlightenment. 

The first place among Renaissance scientists must 
be given to Copernicus (1473-1543), the founder of 
modern astronomy. He was a Pole, but he lived for 
many years in Italy. Research and calculation led 
him to the conclusion that the earth turns upon its 
own axis, and, together with the planets, revolves 
around the sun. The book in which he announced 
this conclusion did not appear until the very end of 
his life. Astronomers before Copernicus generally 
accepted the doctrine, formulated by the Greek 
scientist Ptolemy in the second century, that the earth 
was the center of the universe. Some students had 
indeed suggested that the earth and planets might 
rotate about a central sun, but Copernicus first 
gave adequate reasons for such a belief. An Italian 
astronomer, Galileo, made one of the first telescopes— 
it was about as powerful as an opera-glass—and 
turned it on the heavenly bodies with wonderful re¬ 
sults. He found the sun moving unmistakably on its 
axis, Venus showing phases according to her position 
in relation to the sun, Jupiter accompanied by revolv¬ 
ing moons, or satellites, and the Milky Way com¬ 
posed of a multitude of separate stars. Galileo 
rightly believed that these discoveries confirmed the 
theory of Copernicus. 

Copernicus, Galileo, and their fellow workers 
built up the scientific method. Medieval students 




2 44 The Renaissance 

were generally satisfied to accept what Aristotle 
and other philosophers had said, without trying 
to verify their statements. The new scientific 
method rested on observation and experiment. As 
Lord Bacon, one of Shakespeare’s contemporaries, 
declared, “All depends on keeping the eye steadily 
fixed upon the facts of nature, and so receiving their 
images simply as they are, for God forbid that we 
should give out a dream of our own imagination for 
a pattern of the world.” Modern science, to which 
we owe so much, is a child of the Renaissance. 

Geographical Discovery 

There was also a geographical Renaissance. The 
revival of exploration brought about the discovery of 
ocean routes to the Far East and the Americas. In 
consequence, commerce was vastly stimulated, and 
two continents, hitherto unknown, were opened up 
to civilization. The geographical Renaissance thus 
cooperated with the other movements of the age in 
bringing about the transition from medieval to mod¬ 
ern times. 

The Greeks and Romans had become familiar with 
a large part of Europe and Asia, but much of their 
learning was either forgotten or perverted during the 
early Middle Ages. Even the wonderful discoveries 
of the Northmen in the North Atlantic gradually 
faded from memory. The Arabs, whose conquests 
and commerce spread over so much of the Orient, 
far surpassed the Christian peoples of Europe in 
knowledge of the world. 

The crusades first extended geographical knowl¬ 
edge by fostering pilgrimages and missions in Ori¬ 
ental lands. Numerous merchants also visited the 


After the death mask. From the copper-plate engraved by Martin Droeshout for 

the First Folio edition of Shakespeare’s works in i 6_>3. 





















Geographical Discovery 245 

East. Among them were the Venetians, Nicolo and 
Maffeo Polo, and Nicolo’s son, Marco. The Polos 
made an adventurous journey through the heart of 
Asia to the court of Kublai Khan at Peking, or 
Cambaluc. The Mongol ruler, who seems to have 
been anxious to introduce Christianity and European 
culture among his people, received them in a friendly 
manner, and they amassed much wealth by trade. 
Marco entered the khan’s service and went on several 
expeditions to distant parts of the Mongol realm. 
Many years passed before Kublai would allow his 
useful guests to return to Europe. When they reached 
Venice after an absence of twenty-four years, their 
relatives were slow to recognize in them the long- 
lost Polos. 

The story of the Polos, as written down at Marco’s 
dictation, became one of the most popular works of 
the Middle Ages. In this book people read of far 
Cathay (China), with its wealth, its huge cities, and 
swarming population, of mysterious and secluded 
Tibet, of Burma, Siam, and Cochin-China, with their 
palaces and pagodas, of the East Indies, famed for 
spices, of Ceylon, abounding in pearls, and of India, 
little known since the days of Alexander the Great. 
Even Cipango (Japan) Marco described from hear¬ 
say as an island whose inhabitants were white, civil¬ 
ized, and so rich in gold that the royal palace was 
roofed and paved with that metal. The accounts of 
these countries naturally made Europeans more eager 
than ever to reach the East. 

The new knowledge concerning the land routes 
of Asia was accompanied by much progress in the 
art of ocean navigation. The most important inven¬ 
tion was that of the mariner’s compass. It enabled 


246 


The Renaissance 


sailors to find their bearings even in murky weather 
and on starless nights. The astrolabe, which the 
Greeks had invented and used for astronomical pur¬ 
poses, seems to have been introduced into Europe 
through the Arabs. It was employed to calculate 
latitudes by observation of the height of the sun above 
the horizon. The charting of coasts became a science 
during the last centuries of the Middle Ages. Manu¬ 
als were prepared to give information about the tides, 
curients, and other features of sea-routes. The 
increase in size of ships made navigation safer and 
permitted the storage of bulky cargoes. For long 
voyages the sailing vessel replaced the medieval gal¬ 
ley rowed by oars. As the result of all these aids to 
exploration, sailors no longer found it necessary to 
keep close to shore, but could push out into the ocean. 

The needs of commerce largely account for early 
exploring voyages. Eastern spices—cinnamon, pep¬ 
per, cloves, nutmeg, and ginger—were used more 
freely in medieval times than now, when people lived 
on salt meat during the winter and salt fish during 
Lent. Even wine, ale, and medicines had a seasoning 
of spices. Besides spices, all kinds of precious stones, 
drugs, perfumes, gums, dyes, and fragrant woods 
came from the East. Since the time of the crusades 
these luxuries, after having been brought overland or 
by water to Mediterranean ports, had been distrib¬ 
uted by Venetian and Genoese merchants throughout 
Europe. Two other European peoples—the Portu¬ 
guese and Spaniards—now appeared as competitors 
for this Oriental trade. Their efforts to break 
through the monopoly enjoyed by the Italian cities 
led to the discovery of the sea-routes to the Indies. 
The Portuguese were first in the field. 


Geographical Discovery 


2 47 


Gradual exploration of the western coast of Africa 
and the discovery of the Cape of Good Hope in 1487 
had convinced the Portuguese that the Indies could 
be reached by a maritime route. A daring mariner, 



course, on the original globe. 

Vasco da Gama, soon proved this true by sailing from 
Lisbon to Calicut on the southwestern coast of India. 
When Da Gama returned to Lisbon, he brought back 
a cargo which repaid sixty times the cost of the expe¬ 
dition. The Portuguese king received him with high 
honor and created him Admiral of the Indies. 

Six years before Vasco da Gama cast anchor in 




























248 


The Renaissance 


the harbor of Calicut, another intrepid sailor, seeking 
the Indies by a western route, accidentally discovered 
America. It does not detract from the glory of Col¬ 
umbus to show that the way for his discovery had 
been long in preparation. In the first place, the 
theory that the earth is round had been familiar to 
the Greeks and Romans, and to some learned men 
even in the darkest period of the Middle Ages. The 
awakening of interest in Greek science, as a result of 
the Renaissance, called renewed attention to the 
statements by ancient geographers. After the revival 
of Ptolemy’s works in the fifteenth century, scholars 
very generally accepted the globular theory; and they 

even went so far as to calculate the circumference of 
the earth. 

In the second place, men had long believed that 
west of Europe, beyond the strait of Gibraltar, lay 
mysterious lands. This notion first appears in the 
writings of the Greek philosopher Plato, who repeats 
an old tiadition concerning Atlantis. According to 
Plato, Atlantis had been an island, continental in size, 
but thousands of years before his time it had sunk 
beneath the sea. A widespread legend of the Middle 
Ages also described the visit made by St. Brandan, an 
Irish monk, to the a p r °nfised land of the saints,” an 
earthly paradise far out in the Atlantic. St. Bran- 
dan s Island was marked on early maps, and voyages 
in search of it were sometimes undertaken. 

All know the story of the first voyage of Columbus. 
When he started out, he firmly believed that a jour¬ 
ney of only four thousands miles would bring him to 
Cipango and the realms of the Great Khan of Cathay. 
The error was natural enough, for Ptolemy had 
reckoned the earth’s circumference to be about one- 


Geographical Discovery 249 

sixth less than it is, and Marco Polo had given an 
exaggerated idea of the distance to which Asia 
extended toward the east. The name West Indies, 
applied to the islands discovered by Columbus, still 
remains as a testimony to this error. 

Shortly after the return of Columbus from his first 
voyage, Pope Alexander VI, in response to a request 
by Ferdinand and Isabella, issued a bull granting 
these sovereigns exclusive rights over the newly dis¬ 
covered lands. In order that the Spanish possessions 
should be clearly marked off from those of the Portu¬ 
guese, the pope laid down an imaginary line of 
demarcation in the Atlantic, three hundred miles 
west of the Azores. All new discoveries west of the 
line were to belong to Spain, and all those east of it 
to Portugal. But this arrangement, which excluded 
France, England, and other European countries from 
the New World, could not be long maintained. 

The demarcation line had a good deal to do in 
bringing about the first voyage around the globe. So 
far no one had yet realized the dream of Columbus 
to reach the lands of spice and silk by sailing west- 
ward. Ferdinand Magellan, a Portuguese in the 
service of Spain, believed that the Spice Islands lay 
within the Spanish sphere of influence and that a 
route to them could be found through some strait at 
the southern end of South America. The Spanish 
ruler, Charles V, grandson of the Isabella who had 
supported Columbus, looked with favor upon Magel¬ 
lan’s ideas and provided a fleet of five vessels for the 
undertaking. After exploring the eastern coast of 
South America, Magellan came at length to the strait 
which now bears his name. He sailed boldly through 
this strait into an ocean called by him the Pacific, 


250 


The Renaissance 


because of its peaceful aspect. A voyage of ninety- 
eight days across the Pacific brought him to the 
Ladrone or Marianas Islands. Magellan then pro¬ 
ceeded to the Philippines, where he was killed in a 
fight with the natives. His men, however, managed 
to reach the Spice Islands. A single ship, the 
J r ictoria, subsequently carried back to Spain the few 
sailors who had survived the hardships of a journey 
lasting nearly three years. Magellan’s voyage forms 
a landmark of geographical discovery. It proved 
that America, at least on the south, had no connection 
with Asia; it showed the enormous extent of the 
Pacific Ocean; and it led to the discovery of many 
large islands in the East Indies. Henceforth men 
knew of a certainty that the earth is round and in 
the distance covered by Magellan they had a rough 
estimate of its size. The circumnavigation of the 
globe ranks with the discovery of the sea-routes to 
the Indies and America among the most significant 
events of history. 

Colonial Empires 

After Da Gama’s voyage the Portuguese made 
haste to appropriate the wealth of the Indies. By 
the middle of the sixteenth century they had acquired 
almost complete ascendancy throughout southern 
Asia and the adjacent islands. Their colonial empire 
included many trading coasts in Africa, Ormuz at 
the entrance to the Persian Gulf, the western coast 
of India, Ceylon, Malacca at the end of the Malay 
Peninsula, and various possessions in the Malay 
Archipelago. 

The Portuguese came to the East as the successors 
of the Arabs, who for centuries had conducted an 



NAPOLEON AS FIRST CONSUL 

After the painting by J.-B. Isabey. 
Versailles Gallery. 








Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York 

A picture by Meissonier of the battle of Friedland. Napoleon is shown seated on his famous white charger and surrounded by his staff. As the 
cuirassiers advance to the attack, each horseman rises in the saddle and salutes the emperor. Soldiers of the “Old Guard,” wearing grenadier caps and 
white breeches, are seen drawn up in the rear. 








251 


Colonial Empires 

extensive trade on the Indian Ocean. Having dis¬ 
possessed the Arabs, the Portuguese took care to shut 
out all European competitors. Only their own mer¬ 
chants were allowed to bring goods from the Indies 
to Europe by the Cape route. Lisbon, the capital of 
Portugal, formed the chief depot for spices and other 
eastern commodities. The French, English, and 
Dutch came there to buy them and took the place 
of Italian merchants in distributing them throughout 
Europe. 

The triumph of Portugal was short-lived. This 
small country, with a population of not more than a 
million, lacked the strength to defend her claims to 
a monopoly of the Oriental trade. During the seven¬ 
teenth century the French and English broke the 
power of the Portuguese in India, while the Dutch 
drove them from Ceylon and the East Indies. 

The discoverers of the New World were naturally 
the pioneers in its exploration. The adventures of 
Ponce de Leon, who discovered Florida in 1513, of 
Balboa, who sighted the Pacific in the same year, 
of Cortes, who overthrew the Aztec power in Mexico, 
of Pizarro, who conquered the Incas of Peru, of De 
Soto, and of Coronado are familiar to every reader 
of American history. These men laid the founda¬ 
tions of the Spanish colonial empire. It included 
Florida, New Mexico, California, Mexico, Central 
America, the West Indies, and all South America 
except Brazil. The rule of Spain over these domin¬ 
ions lasted nearly three hundred years. During this 
time she gave her language, her government and her 
religion to half the New World. 

The government of Spain administered its colonial 
dominions in the spirit of monopoly. As far as 


252 


The Renaissance 


possible, it excluded French, English, and other for¬ 
eigners from trading with Spanish America. It also 
discouraged ship-building, manufacturing, and even 
the cultivation of the vine and the olive, lest the col¬ 
onists should compete with home industries. The 
colonies were regarded only as a work-shop for the 
production of the precious metals and raw materials. 
This unwise policy partly accounts for the economic 
backwardness of Mexico, Peru, and other Spanish- 
American countries. 

The Old World and the New 

The New W orld contained two virgin continents, 
rich in natural resources and capable of extensive 
colonization. The native peoples, comparatively few 
in number and barbarian in culture, could not offer 
much resistance to the explorers, missionaries, traders, 
and colonists from the Old World. The Spanish and 
Portuguese in the sixteenth century, followed by the 
French, English, and Dutch in the seventeenth cen- 
tury, repeopled America and brought to it European 
civilization. Europe expanded into a Greater 
Europe beyond the ocean. 

In the Middle Ages the Mediterranean and the 
Baltic had been the principal highways of commerce. 
The discovery of America, followed 'immediately by 
the opening of the Cape route to the Indies, shifted 
commercial activitv from these inclosed seas to the 
Atlantic Ocean. Venice, Genoa, Hamburg, Liibeck, 
and Bruges gradually gave way, as trading centers, to 
Lisbon and Cadiz, Bordeaux and Cherbourg, Ant¬ 
werp and Amsterdam, London and Liverpool. One 
may say, therefore, that the year 1492 inaugurated the 
Atlantic period of European history. 

The discovery of America revealed to Europeans 







































































































































































The Old World and the New 


2 53 


a new source of the precious metals. The Spaniards 
soon secured large quantities of gold by plundering 
the Indians of Mexico and Peru of their stored-up 
wealth. The output of silver much exceeded that of 
gold, as soon as the Spaniards began to work the won¬ 
derfully rich silver mines of Potosi in Bolivia. It is 
estimated that, by the end of the sixteenth century, 
the American mines had produced at least three times 
as much gold and silver as had been current in Europe 
at the beginning of the century. 

The Spaniards could not keep this new treasure. 
Having few industries themselves, they were obliged 
to send it out, as fast as they received it, in payment 
for their imports of European goods. Spain acted 
as a huge sieve through which the gold and silver of 
America entered all the countries of Europe. Money, 
now more plentiful, purchased far less than in former 
times; in other words, the prices of all commodities 
rose, wages advanced, and manufacturers and traders 
had additional capital to use in their undertakings. 
The Middle Ages suffered from the lack of sufficient 
money with which to do business; from the beginning 
of modern times the world has been better supplied 
with the indispensable medium of exchange. 

But America was much more than a treasury of 
the precious metals. Many commodities, hitherto 
unknown, soon found their way from the New World 
to the Old. Among these were maize, the potato, 
which, when cultivated in Europe, became the “bread 
of the poor,” chocolate and cocoa made from the 
seeds of the cacao tree, Peruvian bark, or quinine, 
so useful in malarial fevers, cochineal, the dye-woods 
of Brazil, and the mahogany of the West Indies. 
America also sent to Europe large supplies of cane- 


2 54 


The Renaissance 


sugar, molasses, fish, whale oil, and furs. These new 
American products became common articles of con¬ 
sumption and so raised the standard of living in 
European countries. 

To the economic effects of the discoveries must 
be added their effects on politics. The Atlantic 
Ocean now formed not only the commercial but also 
the political center of the world. The Atlantic- 
facing countries, first Portugal and Spain, then Hol¬ 
land, Franee, and England, became the great powers 
of Europe. Their trade rivalries and contests for 
colonial possessions have been potent causes of Euro¬ 
peans wars for the last four hundred years. 

The sixteenth century in Europe was the age of 
that revolt against the Roman Church called the 
Protestant Reformation. During this period, how¬ 
ever, the Church won her victories over the American 
aborigines. What she lost of territory, wealth, and 
influence in Europe was offset by what she gained in 
America. Furthermore, the region now occupied by 
the United States furnished in the seventeenth century 
an asylum from religious persecution, as was proved 
when Puritans settled in New England, Roman 
Catholics in Maryland, and Quakers in Pennsylvania. 
The vacant spaces of America offered plenty of room 
for all who would worship God in their own way. 
The New World became a refuge from the intoler¬ 
ance of the Old. 

The Protestant Reformation 

The Reformation has a place beside the revival of 
literature, art, and science, the development of inven¬ 
tion, and the progress of geographical discovery, 
among the great movements ushering in the modern 


The Protestant Reformation 255 

world. It involved, as we shall learn, a decisive 
break with both the teachings of the Church and the 
authority of the Papacy. 

There were several causes of the Reformation. 
Politically, it expressed the opposition of European 
sovereigns to the secular authority wielded by the 
Church. Having triumphed over feudalism, the 
sovereigns wished to bring the Church, as well, within 
their jurisdiction. They tried to restrict the privi¬ 
leges of ecclesiastical courts, to impose taxes on the 
clergy, as on their own subjects, and to dictate the 
appointment of bishops and abbots to office. The 
result was constant friction between Church and State 
in one European country after another. Econom¬ 
ically, the Reformation voiced a protest, on the part 
of both upper and lower classes, against the increas¬ 
ing luxury and extravagance of the papal court. The 
protest rang loudest in Germany, when there was no 
strong king to prohibit the drainage of money to 
Rome, as French and English rulers had done. 

The political and economic causes of the Reforma¬ 
tion combined with those strictly religious in charac¬ 
ter. Thoughtful men in the fourteenth and fifteenth 
centuries had criticized the worldliness of the 
Church, as reflected in the lives of many of its officers, 
and had urged that even popes, cardinals, and bishops 
should imitate the poverty of the Apostles. Some 
reformers, such as John Wycliffe in England and 
John Huss in Bohemia, went much further and 
demanded wholesale changes in Catholic belief and 
worship. The views of Wycliffe and Huss were now 
to be expressed in Germany during the sixteenth 
century by the real founder of the Reformation, 
Martin Luther. 


256 


The Renaissance 


Luther was the son of a German peasant, who, by 
industry and frugality, had gained a small compe¬ 
tence. Thanks to his father’s self-sacrifice, Luther 
received a good education in theology and philosophy 
at the University of Erfurt. He took the degrees of 
bachelor and master of arts and then began to study 
law, but an acute sense of his sinfulness and a desire 
to save his soul soon drove him into a monastery. A 
few years later Luther visited Rome, only to be 
shocked by the general laxity of life in the capital of 
the Papacy. After returning to Germany he became 
a professor of theology in the University of Witten¬ 
berg, where his sermons and lectures attracted large 
audiences. 

Luther’s reforming career began with an attack 
upon the indulgence system as found in Germany. 
An indulgence is a letter of pardon relieving a truly 
penitent sinner from some or all of the penances 
(punishments) which the Church would otherwise 
impose upon him. Its benefits are also applied to the 
souls of the dead in purgatory. During the Middle 
Ages the pope granted indulgences to crusaders and 
pilgrims, and also to those who gave money for a 
pious object, such as the erection of a church or a 
convent. Many German princes opposed this method 
of raising funds for the Church, because it took so 
much money out of their dominions. Luther con¬ 
demned it on religious grounds, pointing out that 
common people, who could not understand the Latin 
in which indulgences were written, often thought that 
they wiped away the penalties of sin, even without 
true repentance. Luther also denied the efficacy of 
indulgences for souls in purgatory. These and other 
criticisms were set forth by him in ninety-five theses, 


MARTIN LUTHER JOHN CALVIN 

After a portrait made in 1526 by Lucius After an old print. 

Cranach the Elder. 



















































The Protestant Reformation 257 

or propositions, which he offered to defend against 
all opponents. In accordance with the custom of 
medieval scholars, Luther posted the theses on the 
door of the church at Wittenberg, where all might 
see them. They were composed in Latin, but were 
at once translated into German, printed, and spread 
broadcast over Germany. Their effect was so great 
that before long the granting of indulgences in that 
country almost ceased. 

The pope, at first, had paid little attention to the 
controversy about indulgences, declaring it a “mere 
squabble of monks,” but he now issued a bull against 
Luther, ordering him to recant within sixty days or 
be excommunicated. The papal bull did not frighten 
Luther or withdraw from him popular support. He 
burnt it in the market-square of Wittenburg, in the 
presence of a concourse of students and townsfolk. 
This dramatic action deeply stirred all Germany. 
The pope then urged the Holy Roman Emperor, 
Charles V, to put Luther under the ban of the empire. 
Charles was willing to comply, but the German 
princes insisted that Luther must not be condemned 
unheard. Accordingly, Luther was summoned 
before a great assembly (Diet) of princes and eccle¬ 
siastical dignitaries at Worms. Here he refused to 
retract anything he had written, unless his statements 
could be shown to contradict the Bible. “It is neither 
right nor safe to act against conscience,” Luther said. 
“God help me. Amen.” 

The Diet of Worms proclaimed Luther a heretic 
and outlaw, but his friends spirited him away to the 
castle of the Wartburg. He remained in seclusion 
for many months, engaged upon a translation of the 

Bible. Though still under the ban of the empire, 

\ 


258 


The Renaissance 


Luther now returned to Wittenberg and devoted 
himself to the reformatory movement. His transla¬ 
tion of the Bible, simple, forcible, and easy to under¬ 
stand, enjoyed wide popularity and helped to fix for 
Germans the form of their literary language. Luther 
also composed many fine hymns and a catechism, 
flooded the country with pamphlets, and wrote innu- 
merable letters to his adherents. He became in this 
way the leader of the German Reformation. 

The Reformation in Germany made a wide appeal. 
To patriotic Germans it seemed a revolt against a 
foreign power—the Italian Papacy. To men of 
pious mind it offered the attractions of a simple faith 
based directly on the Bible. Worldly-minded princes 
saw in it an opportunity to despoil the Church of 
lands and revenues. Luther’s teachings, accordingly, 
found acceptance among many people. Priests mar¬ 
ried, monks left their monasteries, and the “Reformed 
Religion” took the place of Roman Catholicism in 
most parts of northern and central Germany. South 
Geimany, however, did not fail away from the pope 

and has remained Roman Catholic to the present 
time. 

Luther’s doctrines also spread into Scandinavian 
lands. The rulers of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden 
closed the monasteries and compelled the Roman 
Catholic bishops to surrender ecclesiastical prop¬ 
erty to the Crown. Lutheranism became henceforth 
the official religion of these three countries. 

The Reformation in Switzerland began with Hul- 
dreich Zwingli. He was the contemporary, but not 
the disciple, of Luther. From his pulpit in the 
cathedral of Zurich, Zwingli proclaimed the Scrip¬ 
tures as the sole guide of faith and denied the suprem- 


The Protestant Reformation 259 

acy of the pope. Many of the Swiss cantons accepted 

his teaching and broke away from obedience to 
Rome. 

Another founder of Protestantism was the French¬ 
man, John Calvin. His Institutes of the Christian 
Religion set forth in orderly, logical manner the main 
principles of Protestant theology. He also translated 
the Bible into French and wrote commentaries on 
nearly all the Scriptural books. Calvin passed most 
of his life at Geneva. The men whom he trained 
there, and on whom he set the stamp of his stern, 
earnest, God-fearing character, spread Calvinism 
over a great part of Europe. In Holland and Scot¬ 
land it became the prevailing type of Protestantism, 
and in France and in England it deeply affected the 
national life. During the seventeenth century the 
Puritans carried Calvinism across the sea to New 
England, where it formed the dominant faith in colo¬ 
nial times. 

The Reformation in Germany and Switzerland 
started as a national and popular movement; in 
England it began as the act of a despotic sovereign, 
Henry VIII, the second king of the Tudor dynasty. 
He broke with the pope because the latter would 
not consent to his divorce from his queen, Catherine 
of Aragon, who was the aunt of the Holy Roman 
Emperor and Spanish monarch, Charles V. Henry 
VIII finally obtained the desired divorce from an 
English court, and in defiance of the papal bull of 
excommunication married a pretty maid-in-waiting, 
named Anne Boleyn. The king’s next step was to 
secure from his subservient Parliament a series of 
laws abolishing the pope’s authority in England. An 
Act of Supremacy (1534) declared the English king 


260 


The Renaissance 


to be “the only supreme head on earth of the Church 
of England,” with power to appoint all ecclesiastical 
officers and dispose of the papal revenues. The sup¬ 
pression of the monasteries and the appropriation of 
their wealth for himself and his favorites soon fol¬ 
lowed this legislation. While Henry VIII thus 
separated England from the control of the Papacy, he 
remained Roman Catholic in belief to the day of his 
death. 

The Reformation made rapid progress in England 
during the reign of Henry’s son and successor, 
Edward VI. The young king’s guardian allowed 
reformers from the Continent to come to England, 
and the doctrines of Luther, Zwingli, and Calvin 
were freely preached there. In order that religious 
services might be conducted in the language of the 
people, Archbishop Cranmer and his co-workers 
prepared the Book of Common Prayer. It consisted 
of translations into noble English of various parts of 
the old Latin service books. With some changes, it 
is still used in the Church of England and the Protest¬ 
ant Episcopal Church of the United States. The 
short reign of Mary Tudor, daughter of Catherine of 
Aragon, was marked by a temporary setback to the 
Protestant cause. The queen prevailed on Parlia¬ 
ment to secure a reconciliation with Rome. She also 
married her Roman Catholic cousin, Philip II of 
Spain, the son of Charles V. Mary now began a 
severe persecution of the Protestants. Many eminent 
reformers perished, among them Cranmer, the former 
archbishop. Mary died childless, after ruling about 
five years, and the crown passed to Anne Boleyn’s 
daughter, Elizabeth. Under Elizabeth Anglicanism 
again replaced Roman Catholicism in England. 


The Protestant Sects 

The Protestant Sects 


261 


The Reformation was practically completed before 
the close of the sixteenth century. In 1500 the Roman 
Church embraced all Europe west of Russia 
and the Balkan Peninsula. By 1600 nearly half of 
its former subjects had renounced their allegiance. 



Extent of the Reformation, 1524-1572 a. d. 


The greater part of Germany and Switzerland and 
all of Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Holland, England, 
Wales, and Scotland became independent of the 
Papacy. The unity of western Christendom, which 
had been preserved throughout the Middle Ages, 
thus disappeared and has not since been revived. 































































































262 


The Renaissance 


The reformers agreed in substituting for the 
authority of popes and church councils the authority 
of the Bible. They went back fifteen hundred years 
to the time of the Apostles and tried to restore what 
they believed to be apostolic Christianity. Hence 
they rejected such doctrines and practices as were 
supposed to have developed during the Middle 
Ages. These included belief in purgatory, venera¬ 
tion of relics, invocation of saints, devotion to the 
Virgin, indulgences, pilgrimages, and the greater 
number of the sacraments. The Reformation also 
abolished the monastic system and priestly celibacy. 
7 he sharp distinction between clergy and laity dis¬ 
appeared; for priests married, lived among the peo¬ 
ple, and no longer formed a separate class. In 
general, Protestantism affirmed the ability of every 
man to find salvation without the aid of ecclesiastics. 
The Church was no longer the only “gate of heaven.” 

But the Protestant idea of authority led inevitably 
to differences of opinion among the reformers. 
There were various ways of interpreting that Bible 
to which they appealed as the rule of faith and con¬ 
duct. Consequently, Protestantism split up into many 
sects or denominations, and these have gone on mul¬ 
tiplying to the present day. Nearly all, however, are 
offshoots from the three main varieties of Protestant¬ 
ism which appeared in the sixteenth century. 

Lutheranism and Anglicanism presented some fea¬ 
tures in common. Both were state churches, sup¬ 
ported by the government; both had a book of 
common piayer; and both recognized the sacraments 
of baptism, the Eucharist, and confirmation. The 
Chuich of England also kept the sacrament of ordina¬ 
tion. The Lutheran churches in Denmark, Norway, 


The Protestant Sects 263 

and Sweden, as well as the Church of England, like¬ 
wise retained the episcopate. 

Calvinism departed much more widely from 
Roman Catholicism. It did away with the episco¬ 
pate and had only one order of clergy—the presby¬ 
ters. It provided for a very simple form of worship. 
In a Calvinistic church the service consisted of Bible 
reading, a sermon, extemporaneous prayers, and 
hymns sung by the congregation. The Calvinists 
kept only two sacraments, baptism and the Eucharist. 
They regarded the first, however, as a simple under¬ 
taking to bring up the child in a Christian manner, 
and the second as merely a commemoration of the 
Last Supper. 

The break with Rome did not introduce religious 
liberty into Europe. Nothing was further from the 
mind of- Luther, Calvin, and other reformers than 
the toleration of beliefs unlike their own. The early 
Protestant sects punished dissenters as zealously as 
the Roman Church punished heretics. Lutherans 
persecuted the followers of Zwingli in Germany, 
Calvinists put non-Calvinists to death, and the Eng¬ 
lish government, in the time of Henry VIII and 
Elizabeth, executed many Roman Catholics. Free¬ 
dom of conscience and the right of private judgment 
in religion have been secured in most countries of 
Europe only within the last hundred years. 

The Reformation, however, did deepen the moral 
life of European peoples. The faithful Protestant 
or Roman Catholic tried to show by his conduct that 
his particular form of belief made for better living 
than any other faith. The impulse to higher stan¬ 
dards of morality, which we owe to the Reformation, 
is still felt at the present day. 


2( H The Renaissance 

The Catholic Counter Reformation 

The rapid spread of Protestantism soon brought 
about a Catholic Counter Reformation in those parts 
of Europe which remained faithful to Rome. The 
popes now turned from the cultivation of Renaissance 
art and literature to the defense of their threatened 
faith. They made needed changes in the papal court 
and appointed to ecclesiastical offices men distin¬ 
guished for virtue and learning. This reform of the 
Papacy dates from the time of Paul III, who became 
pope in 1534. Still more important was his support 
of the Society of Jesus, which had been established 
in the year of his accession to the papal throne. 

The founder of the new society was a Spanish 
nobleman, Ignatius Loyola. He had^seen a good 
deal of service in the wars of Charles V against the 
French. W hile in a hospital recovering from a 
wound, Loyola read devotional books, and these pro¬ 
duced a profound change within him. He now 
donned a beggar’s robe, practiced all the kinds of 
asceticism which his books prescribed, and went on 
a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Still later he became a 
student of theology at Paris, where he met the six 
devout and talented men who became the first mem¬ 
bers of his society. They intended to work as mis¬ 
sionaries among the Moslems, but, when this plan 
fell through, they visited Rome and placed their 
energy and enthusiasm at the disposal of the pope. 

Loyola’s military training deeply affected the 
character of the new order. The Jesuits, as their 
Protestant opponents styled them, were to form an 
army of spiritual soldiers, living under the strictest 
obedience to their head, or general. Like soldiers, 


Catholic Counter Reformation 265 

again, they were to remain in the world and there 
fight manfully for the Church and against heretics. 
The society grew rapidly; before Loyola’s death it 
included over a thousand members; and in the seven¬ 
teenth century it became the most influential of all 
the religious orders. The activity of the Jesuits as 
preachers, confessors, teachers, and missionaries did 
much to roll back the rising tide of Protestantism in 
Europe. 

The Jesuits gave special attention to education, for 
they realized the importance of winning over the 
young people to the Church. Their schools were so 
good that even Protestant children often attended 
them. The popularity of Jesuit teachers arose partly 
from the fact that they always tried to lead, not drive, 
their pupils. Light punishments, short lessons, many 
holidays, and a liberal use of prizes and other dis¬ 
tinctions formed some of the attractive features of 
their system of training. It is not surprising that the 
Jesuits became the instructors of the Roman Catholic 
world. They called their colleges the fortresses of 
the faith.” 

The missions of the Jesuits were not less important 
than their schools. The Jesuits worked in Poland, 
Hungary, Bohemia, and other countries where Prot¬ 
estantism threatened to become dominant. Then 
they invaded all the lands which the great maritime 
discoveries had laid open to European enterprise. 
In India, China, the East Indies, Japan, the Philip¬ 
pines, Africa, and the two Americas their converts 
from heathenism were numbered by hundreds of 
thousands. 

Another agency in the Counter Reformation was 
the great Church council summoned by Pope Paul 


266 


The Renaissance 


III. The council met at Trent, on the borders of 
Germany and Italy. It continued, with intermis¬ 
sions, for nearly twenty years. The Protestants, 
though invited to participate, did not attend, and 
hence nothing could be done to bring them back 
within the Roman Catholic fold. This was the last 

general council of the Church for more than three 
hundred years. 

The Council of Trent made no essential changes 
in Roman Catholic doctrines, which remained as 
theologians had set them forth in the Middle Ages. 
It declared that the tradition of the Church possessed 
equal authority with the Bible and reaffirmed the 
supremacy of the pope over Christendom. The 
council also passed decrees forbidding the sale of 
ecclesiastical offices and requiring bishops and other 
prelates to attend strictly to their duties. Since the 
Council of Trent the Roman Church has been dis¬ 
tinctly a religious organization, instead of both a 

secular and a religious body, as was the Church in the 
Middle Ages. 

The council, before adjourning, authorized the 
pope to draw up a list of works which Roman Catho¬ 
lics might not read. This action did not form an 
innovation. The Church from an early day had con- 
emned heretical writings. However, the invention 
o printing, by giving greater currency to new and 
dangerous ideas, seemed to increase the necessity for 
the regulation of thought. The “Index of Prohibited 
Books” still exists, and additions to the list are made 
from time to time. It was matched by the strict cen¬ 
sorship of printing long maintained in Protestant 
countries. 

Still another agency of the Counter Reformation 


The Religious Wars 


267 


consisted of the Inquisition. This was a system of 
Church courts for the discovery and punishment of 
heretics. Such courts had been set up in the Middle 
Ages. After the Council of Trent they redoubled 
their activity, especially in Italy, the Netherlands, 
and Spain. The Inquisition probably contributed to 
the disappearance of Protestantism in Italy. In the 
Netheilands, where it worked with great severity, it 
only aroused exasperation and hatred and helped to 
provoke a successful revolt of the Dutch people. The 
Spaniards, on the other hand, approved of the 
methods of the Inquisition and welcomed its exter¬ 
mination of heretics. The Spanish Inquisition was 
not abolished until the nineteenth century. 

The Religious Wars 

The young man who as Holy Roman Emperor 
presided at the Diet of Worms had assumed the 
imperial crown only two years previously. A name¬ 
sake of Charlemagne, Charles V held sway over 
dominions even more extensive than those which had 
belonged to the Frankish king. Through his mother, 
a daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella, he inherited 
Spain, Naples, Sicily, Sardinia, and the Spanish pos¬ 
sessions-in the New World. Through his father, he 
received the Netherlands and the extensive posses¬ 
sions of the Hapsburgs in central Europe. Charles 
V, as a devout Roman Catholic, felt no sympathy 
with Lutheranism and might easily have extinguished 
it, had he undertaken the task promptly. A revolt in 
Spain and wars with the French and the Ottoman 
Turks led, however, to his long absence from Ger¬ 
many and kept him from proceeding effectively 
against the Lutherans until it was too late. The 


268 


The Renaissance 


emperor, finally, brought Spanish troops into Ger¬ 
many, but the Lutheran princes were now too strong 
for him. Civil war raged until 1555, when both sides 
agreed to the Peace of Augsburg. It was a compro¬ 
mise. The ruler of each state—Germany then con¬ 
tained over three hundred states—was to decide 
whether his subjects should be Lutherans or Catho¬ 
lics. The peace by no means established religious 
toleration, since all Germans had to believe as their 
prince believed. However, it recognized Lutheran¬ 
ism as a legal religion and ended the attempts to 
crush the German Reformation. 

Soon after the Peace of Augsburg, Charles V 
determined to abdicate his many crowns and seek the 
repose of a monastery. The plan was duly carried 
into effect. His brother, Ferdinand I, succeeded to 
the title of Holy Roman Emperor and the Austrian 
territories, while his son, Philip II, received the 
Spanish possessions in Italy, Sicily, the Netherlands, 
and America. There were now two branches of the 
Hapsburg family—one in Austria and one in Spain. 
Philip II, the new king of Spain, aimed to make his 
country the foremost state in the world and to secure 
the triumph of Roman Catholicism over Protestant¬ 
ism. Though he had vast possessions, enormous reve¬ 
nues, mighty fleets, and armies reputed the best of the 
age, he could not dominate western Europe. His 
first defeat was in the Netherlands. 

The Netherlands were too near Germany not to be 
affected by the Reformation. Lutheranism soon 
appeared there, only to encounter the hostility of 
Charles V, who introduced the terrors of the Inquisi¬ 
tion. Many heretics were burned at the stake, or 
beheaded, or buried alive. But there is no seed like 



The Religious Wars 


269 


martyrs’ blood. The number of Protestants swelled, 
rather than lessened, especially after Calvinism 
entered the Netherlands. 



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The Netherlands at the Truce of 1609 a.d. 


In spite of the cruel treatment of heretics by 
Charles V, the Netherlander remained loyal to the 




















































270 


The Renaissance 


emperor, because he had been born and reared among 
them and always considered their country as his own. 
Philip II, a Spaniard by birth and sympathies, 
seemed to them, however, only a foreign master. 
The new ruler did nothing to conciliate the people, 
but governed them despotically through Spanish 
officials supported by Spanish garrisons. Arbitrary 
taxes were levied, cities and nobles were deprived 
of their cherished privileges, and the activity of the 
Inquisition was redoubled. Philip intended to exer¬ 
cise in the Netherlands the same absolute power 
enjoyed by him in Spain. His policies soon produced 
a revolt of both Roman Catholics and Protestants 
against Spanish oppression. 

The southern provinces of the Netherlands, mainly 
Roman Catholic in population, did not long continue 
their resistance. They effected a reconciliation with 
Philip and continued for over two centuries to remain 
in Hapsburg hands. Modern Belgium has grown 
out of them. The seven northern provinces, where 
Dutch was the language and Protestantism the 
religion, came together in 1579 in the Union of 
Utrecht. Two years later they declared their inde¬ 
pendence of Spain. In this way the Dutch Republic 
of the United Netherlands, or simply “Holland,” 
took its place among European nations. 

The struggle of Holland against Spain forms one 
of the notable episodes in history. The Dutch, under 
a resourceful leader, William, Prince of Orange, bet¬ 
ter known as W illiam the Silent, fought stubbornly 
behind the walls of their cities and on more than one 
occasion repelled the enemy by cutting the dikes and 
letting in the sea. Philip’s successor consented in 
1609 to a twelve years’ truce with the revolted prov- 



PHILIP II 

After the painting by Titian in the Prado Museum, Madrid 









s 



QUEEN ELIZABETH 

After the painting hy Zucchero 








2JI 


The Religious Wars 

inces, but their freedom was not recognized officially 
by Spain until many years later. 

The long struggle bound the Dutch together and 
made them one nation. During the seventeenth cen¬ 
tury they took a prominent part in European affairs. 
The republic which they founded ought to be of 
special interest to Americans. Holland had the 
earliest system of common schools supported by taxa¬ 
tion, early adopted the principles of religious tolera¬ 
tion and freedom of the press, and in the Union of 
Utrecht gave to the world the first written constitution 
of a modern state. The Dutch, indeed, were pioneers 
of modern democracy. 

The attempt of Philip II to conquer England, a 
stronghold of Protestantism under Queen Elizabeth, 
likewise ended disastrously. It must be admitted 
that Philip could plead strong justification for his 
hostility. Elizabeth allowed English “sea-dogs,” 
such as Sir Francis Drake, to plunder Spanish colo¬ 
nies and seize Spanish vessels laden with the treasures 
of the New World. Moreover, she aided the rebel¬ 
lious Dutch, at first secretly and at length openly, in 
their struggle against Spain. Philip put up with these 
aggressions for many years, but finally came to the 
conclusion that he could never subdue the Nether¬ 
lands or end the piracy and smuggling in Spanish 
America without first conquering England. Philip 
seems to have believed that, as soon as a Spanish 
army landed on the island, the Roman Catholics there 
would rally to his cause. But the Spanish king never 
had a chance to verify his belief; the decisive battle 
took place on the sea. 

Philip had not completed his preparations 
before Sir Francis Drake sailed into Cadiz harbor 


272 


The Renaissance 


and destroyed a vast amount of naval stores and ship¬ 
ping. This exploit, which Drake called “singeing 
the king of Spain’s beard,” delayed the expedition 
for a year. The “Invincible Armada” set out at last 
in 1588. The Spanish vessels, though somewhat 
larger than those of the English, were inferior in 
number, speed, and gunnery to their adversaries, 
while the Spanish officers, mostly unused to the sea, 
were no match for men like Drake, Frobisher, and 
Raleigh, the best mariners of the age. The Armada 
suffered severely in a nine-days’ fight in the Channel, 
and many vessels which escaped the English guns met 
shipwreck off the Scotch and Irish coasts. Less than 
half of the Armada returned in safety to Spain. 

England in the later Middle Ages had been an 
important naval power. During the sixteenth cen¬ 
tury, however, she was over-matched by Spain, espe¬ 
cially after the annexation of Portugal, by Philip II, 
added the naval forces of that country to the Spanish 
fleets. The defeat of the Armada showed that a new 
people had arisen to claim the supremacy of the 
ocean. Henceforth the English began to build up 

what was to be a sea-power greater than any other 
known to history. 

The French I rotestants, or Huguenots, naturally 
accepted the doctrines of Calvin, who was himself a 
Frenchman and whose books were written in the 
French language. Though bitterly persecuted, the 
Huguenots gained a large following, especially 
among the prosperous middle class of the towns. 
Many nobles also became Huguenots, sometimes 
because of religious conviction, but often because the 
new movement offered them an opportunity to 
recover their feudal independence and to plunder 


The Religious Wars 


273 


the estates of the Church. In France, as well as in 
Germany, the Reformation had its worldly side. 

During most of the second half of the sixteenth 
century, fierce conflicts raged in France between the 
Roman Catholics and the Huguenots. Philip II aided 
the former, and Queen Elizabeth gave some assist¬ 
ance to the latter. France suffered terribly in the 
struggle, not only from the constant fighting, but also 
from the pillage, burnings, and other barbarities in 
which both sides indulged. The Huguenot wars 
ended during the reign of Henry IV, the first of the 
Bourbon kings. Though originally a Protestant, he 
became a Roman Catholic, in order to conciliate the 
great majority of his subjects. 

King Henry did not break with the Huguenots, 
however. He now issued in their interest the cele¬ 
brated Edict of Nantes. The Huguenots henceforth 
were to enjoy freedom of private worship everywhere 
in France, and freedom to worship publicly in a large 
number of villages and towns. Only Roman Catholic 
services, however, might be held in Paris and at the 
royal court. Though the edict did not grant com¬ 
plete religious liberty, it marked an important step 
in that direction. A great European state had recog¬ 
nized for the first time the principle that two rival 
faiths might exist peaceably side by side within its 
borders. 

The Peace of Augsburg gave repose to Germany 
for more than sixty years, but it did not form a com¬ 
plete settlement of the religious question in that coun¬ 
try. There was still room for bitter disputes, espe¬ 
cially over the ownership of Church property which 
had been secularized in the course of the Refor¬ 
mation. Furthermore, the peace recognized only 


274 


The Renaissance 


Roman Catholics and Lutherans and allowed no 
rights whatever to the large body of Calvinists. The 
failure of Lutherans and Calvinists to cooperate 
weakened German Protestantism just at the period 
when the Counter Reformation inspired Roman 
Catholicism with fresh energy and enthusiasm. 

Politics, as well as religion, also made for dissen¬ 
sion. The Roman Catholic party relied for support 
on the Hapsburg emperors, who wished to unite the 
German states under their control, thus restoring the 
Holy Roman Empire to its former proud position 
in the affairs of Europe. The Protestant princes, on 
the other hand, wanted to become independent sov¬ 
ereigns. Hence they resented all efforts to extend 
the imperial authority over them. 

Religious antagonism and political friction together 
produced the Thirty Years’War. It was not so much 
a single conflict in Germany as a series of conflicts, 
which ultimately involved nearly all western Europe. 
At one time Sweden took a prominent part in the 
struggle, under her heroic king, Gustavus Adolphus, 
who came to the aid of the Protestant princes against 
the Holy Roman Emperor. After the death of Gus¬ 
tavus Adolphus in battle, the German Protestants 
found an ally, strangely enough, in Cardinal Riche¬ 
lieu, the all-powerful minister of the French king. 
Richelieu entered the struggle in order to humble 
the Austrian Hapsburgs and extend the boundaries 
of France toward the Rhine. Since the Spanish 
Hapsburgs were aiding their Austrian kinsmen, 
Richelieu naturally fought against Spain also. The 
Holy Roman Emperor had to yield at last and con¬ 
sented to the treaties of peace signed at two cities in 
the province of Westphalia. 


The Religious Wars 


2 75 


The Peace of Westphalia ended the long series of 
wars which followed the Reformation. It practically 
settled the religious question, for it put Roman Catho¬ 
lics, Lutherans, and Calvinists in Germany all on 
the same footing. Henceforth the idea that religious 
differences should be settled by force gradually 
passed away from the minds of men. The territorial 
readjustments made at this time have deeply affected 
the subsequent history of Europe. France received 
from the Holy Roman Empire a large part of Alsace, 
in this way obtaining a foothold on the upper Rhine. 
She also secured the recognition of her claims to the 
bishoprics of Metz, Toul, and Verdun in Lorraine. 
Sweden gained the western half of Pomerania and 
the bishopric of Bremen. These possessions enabled 
her to control the mouths of the rivers Oder, Elbe, 
and Weser, which were important arteries of German 
commerce. Brandenburg—the future kingdom of 
Prussia—acquired eastern Pomerania and several 
bishoprics, thus becoming the leading state in North 
Germany. The independence of Switzerland and of 
the United Netherlands was also recognized. 

During the Thirty Years’ War Germany had seen 
most of the fighting. She suffered from it to the point 
of exhaustion. The population dwindled from about 
sixteen millions to one-half, or, as some believe, to 
one-third that number. The loss of life was partly 
due to fearful epidemics, such as typhus fever and 
the bubonic plague, which spread over the land in 
the wake of the invading armies. A great many 
villages were destroyed or were abandoned by their 
inhabitants. Much of the soil went out of cultivation, 
while trade and manufacturing nearly disappeared. 
Education declined, literature and art retrograded, 




276 


The Renaissance 


and the people became brutalized in mind and 
morals. It took Germany at least one hundred years 
to recover from the injury inflicted by the Thirty 
dears’ War; complete recovery, indeed, took place 
only in the nineteenth century. 

The savagery displayed by all participants in this 
long contest naturally impressed thinking men with 
the necessity of formulating rules to prolect -non¬ 
combatants, to care for prisoners, and to do away 
with pillage and massacre. The worst horrors of the 
war had not taken place before a Dutch jurist, named 
Hugo Grotius, published at Paris in 1625 a work 
On the Laws of JJ ar and Peace. It may be said to 
have founded international law. The success of the 
book was remarkable. Gustavus Adolphus carried a 
copy about with him during his campaigns, and its 
leading doctrines were recognized and acted upon in 
the Peace of Westphalia. Since the time of Grotius, 
the field of international law has widened, and now 
not only the regulation of warfare, but also the 
preservation of peace has become the ideal of states¬ 
men, publicists, and all lovers of mankind. 

The European State System 

After the Peace of Westphalia statesmen generally 
agreed that the various European nations, unequal in 
size, population, and resources, ought to form a sort 
of federal community in which the security of all was 
ensured. If any nation became so powerful as to 
overshadow the others, then they must combine 
against it and endeavor to hold it in check. The main¬ 
tenance of such a balance of power has been a leading 
object of European diplomacy from the time of the 
Thirty Years’ War to the present day. 


Longitude 5 _ West _0° Longitude 5° East from 10° Greenwich 


/ 






































































The European State System 277 

But the balance of power remained only a weak 
ideal, in an age when diplomacy was corrupt and 
international immorality was universal. The strong 
countries often robbed their weaker neighbors with 
impunity. The result was that the vanity, selfishness, 
or ambition of individual rulers and dynasties 
plunged Europe into one war after another. Hence¬ 
forth, national aggrandizement began to replace 
religious dissension as the main cause of European 
strife. 

The map of western Europe in 1648 was very much 
the same as now. The British Isles had a common 
ruler, but Scotland continued to be a separate king¬ 
dom and Ireland was only loosely joined to England. 
The Iberian Peninsula included the two kingdoms 
of Spain and Portugal. Both were declining in 
wealth, population, and political importance. France 
had nearly her existing boundaries, except on the 
east and northeast toward the Rhine. Switzerland 
and the United Netherlands (Holland) were inde¬ 
pendent confederations. The Spanish Netherlands 
(Belgium) remained, however, a province of Spain. 

The map of central Europe in 1648 was very unlike 
what it is to-day. Most of Germany was then divided 
into more than three hundred states and feudal 
domains. Many of them were free to coin money, 
raise armies, make war, and negotiate treaties without 
consulting the Holy Roman Emperor. The imperial 
title and dignity were now hereditary in the Austrian 
Hapsburg family. If they meant little, the Haps- 
burg ruler, as archduke of Austria, king of Bohemia, 
king of Hungary, and lord of many smaller terri¬ 
tories, held, nevertheless, a proud position in Europe. 
Italy, like Germany, presented a picture of disunion. 


278 


The Renaissance 


The northern part of the peninsula contained the 
independent duchy of Savoy, the duchy of Milan (a 
Spanish possession), the republics of Venice and 
Genoa, and the little states of Parma, Modena, and 
Lucca. Cential Italy included the duchy of Tuscany 
and the States of the Church. The kingdom of the 
Two Sicilies belonged to Spain. 

In 1648 there were only two Scandinavian king¬ 
doms, for Norway was joined to Denmark. Sweden, 
then a first-class power, held sway over Finland and 
adjacent territories. The duchy of East Prussia 
belonged to the Elector of Brandenburg. The huge 
kingdom of Poland, which had united with the grand 
duchy of Lithuania in the preceding century, 
stretched from the Baltic almost to the Black Sea.’ 
farther east lay Russia, so backward in civilization 
as to be scarcely a European country. 

The Ottoman Turks in 1648 ruled in southeastern 
Europe. They occupied Greece, all the Balkan 
Peninsula except Montenegro, most of Hungary, and 
the territory now included in Rumania and part of 
southern Russia. Never had the shadow of the cres¬ 
cent loomed more darkly over Europe. 


CHAPTER VITI 


THE SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES 

IN EUROPE 

Absolutism and the Divine Right of Kings 

Most European states in the seventeenth and eight¬ 
eenth centuries were absolute monarchies. The rulers 
of Europe, having triumphed over the feudal nobility 
of the Middle Agee, proclaimed themselves to be the 
sole source of authority. Absolutism prevailed 
everywhere on the Continent, except in such small 
states as Holland, Switzerland, and Venice, where 
aristocracies held the reins of power. Democracy 
was non-existent. The middle and lower classes had 
no real part in law-making, no representative assem¬ 
blies, and no constitutional safeguards against arbi¬ 
trary authority. The kings were everything; their 
subjects, nothing. 

Absolutism was supported by divine right. The 
kings declared that they held their power, not from 
the choice or consent of their subjects, but by the 
“grace of God.” This theory of divine right first 
took shape during the Middle Ages, out of the con¬ 
troversies between the Papacy and the secular rulers 
of Europe. The popes, as God’s vicars on earth, 
claimed the obedience of all Christians, as well in 
temporal as in spiritual matters. Emperors and kings, 
resenting what they regarded as papal interference 
in politics, then set up a counter-claim for the divine 
origin of the imperial and royal power. During the 


279 


2 8o 17th and 18th Centuries in Europe 

Reformation Luther and his followers also exalted 
the authority of the State against the authority of the 
Church, which they condemned and rejected. Provi¬ 
dence, they argued, had never sanctioned the Papacy, 
but Providence had really ordained the State and had 
placed over it a ruler whom it was a religious duty 
to obey. Lutherans, therefore, defended the theory 
of divine right. The same may be said of Anglicans, 
for the Church of England from the first was a 
religion of the State. 

A very different theory found acceptance in those 
parts of Europe where Calvinism prevailed. In his 
Institutes, one of the most widely read books of the 
age, Calvin declares that magistrates and parliaments 
are the guardians of popular liberty “by the ordi¬ 
nance of God.” Calvin’s adherents, amplifying this 
statement, argued that rulers derive their authority 
from the people and that those who abuse it may be 
deposed by the will of the people. The Christian 
duty of resistance to royal tyranny became a cardinal 
principle of Calvinism among the French Hugue¬ 
nots, the Dutch, the Scotch, and most of the Ameri¬ 
can colonists of the seventeenth century. We shall 

now see how influential it was in seventeenth-century 
England. 

The Struggle Against Stuart Absolutism in 

England, 1603-1660 

^ Absolutism in England dated from the time of the 
Tudors. Henry VII humbled the nobles, while 
Henry VIII and Elizabeth brought the Church into 
dependence on the Crown. These three sovereigns, 
though despotic, were excellent rulers and were popu¬ 
lar with the influential middle class in town and 


Struggle Against Stuart Absolutism 281 


country. The Tudors gave England order and pros- 
perity, if not political liberty. 

The English Parliament in the thirteenth century 
had become a body representative of the different 
estates of the realm, and in the fourteenth century it 
had separated into the two houses of Lords and Com¬ 
mons. Parliament enjoyed considerable authority at 
this time. The kings, who were in continual need of 
money, often summoned it, sought its advice upon 
important questions, and readily listened to its 
requests. The despotic Tudors, on the other hand, 
made Parliament their servant. Henry VII called it 
together on only five occasions during his reign; 
Henry VIII persuaded or frightened it into doing 
anything he pleased; and Elizabeth consulted it as 
infrequently as possible. Parliament under the 
Tudors did not abandon its old claims to a share in 
the government, but it had little chance to exercise 
them. 

The death of Elizabeth in 1603 ended the Tudor 
dynasty and placed James I, the first of the Stuarts, 
on the English throne. England and Scotland were 
now joined in a personal union, though each country 
retained its own Parliament, laws, and established 
Church. The new king was well described by a con¬ 
temporary as the “wisest fool in Christendom.” He 
had a good mind and abundant learning, but through¬ 
out his reign he showed an utter inability to win 
either the esteem or the affection of his subjects. This 
was a misfortune, for the English had now grown 
weary of despotism and wanted freedom. They were 
not prepared to tolerate in James, an alien, many 
things which they had overlooked in “Good Queen 
Bess.” 


2 ^2 17th and 18th Centuries in Europe 

The manifest purpose of James to rule as an abso¬ 
lute monarch aroused much opposition in Parliament. 
That body felt little sympathy for a king who pro¬ 
claimed himself the source of all law. When James, 
always extravagant and a poor financier, came before 
it for money, Parliament insisted on its right to with¬ 
hold supplies until grievances were redressed. James 
would not yield, and got along as best he could by 
levying customs duties, selling titles of nobility, and 
imposing excessive fines, in spite of the protests of 
Parliament. 

A religious controversy helped to embitter the dis¬ 
pute between James and Parliament. The king, who 
was a devout Anglican, made himself very unpopular 
with the Puritans, as the reformers within the Church 
of England were called. The Puritans had at first 
no intention of separating from the national or estab¬ 
lished Church, but they wished to “purify” it of 
certain customs which they described as “Romish.” 
Among these were the use of the surplice, of the ring 
in the marriage service, and of the sign of the cross 
in baptism. Some Puritans wanted to get rid of the 
B°°k of Common Prayer altogether. Since the Puri¬ 
tans had a large majority in the House of Commons, 
it was inevitable that the parliamentary struggle 
against Stuart absolutism should assume in part a 
religious character. 

The political and religious difficulties which 
marked the reign of James I did not disappear when 
his son, Charles I, came to the throne. Charles was 
a tiue Stuait in his devotion to absolutism and divine 
right. Almost immediately he began to quarrel with 
Parliament. When that body withheld supplies, 
Charles resorted to forced loans from the wealthy 


Struggle Against Stuart Absolutism 283 

and even imprisoned a number of persons who 
refused to contribute. Such arbitrary acts showed 
plainly that Charles would play the tyrant if he 
could. 

The king’s attitude at last led Parliament to a bold 
assertion of its authority. It now presented to Charles 
the celebrated Petition of Right. (One of the most 
important clauses provided that loans without parlia¬ 
mentary sanction should be considered illegal. 
Another clause declared that no one should be 
arrested or imprisoned except according to the law 
of the land. The Petition thus repeated and rein¬ 
forced some of the leading principles of Magna 
Carta. The people of England, speaking this time 
through their elected representatives, asserted once 
more their right to limit the power of kings. 

Charles signed the Petition, as the only means of 
securing parliamentary consent to taxation; but he 
had no intention of observing it. For the next eleven 
years he managed to get along without calling Parlia¬ 
ment in session. One of his devices to fill his treasury 
was the levying of “ship-money.” According to an 
old custom, seaboard towns and counties had been 
required to provide ships or money for the royal 
navy. Charles revived this custom and extended it 
to towns and counties lying inland. It seemed 
clear that the king meant to impose a permanent tax 
on all England without the assent of Parliament. 
The demand for “ship-money” aroused much opposi¬ 
tion, and John Hampden, a wealthy squire of Buck¬ 
inghamshire, refused to pay the twenty shillings 
levied on his estate. Hampden was tried before a 
court of the royal judges and was convicted by a 
bare majority. He became, however, a popular hero. 


284 ijth and 18th Centuries in Europe 

Archbishop Laud, the king’s chief agent in ecclesi¬ 
astical matters, detested Puritanism and aimed to root 
it out from the Anglican Church. He put no Puri¬ 
tans to death, but he sanctioned cruel punishments 
of those who would not conform to the established 
religion. While the restrictions on Puritans were 
increased, those affecting Roman Catholics were 
relaxed. Many people thought that Charles, through 
Laud and the bishops, was preparing to lead the 
Church of England back to Rome, d hey therefore 
opposed the king on religious grounds, as well as for 
political reasons. 

But the personal rule of Charles was now drawing 
to an end. When the king tried to introduce a modi¬ 
fied form of the English prayer book into Scotland, 
the Scotch Calvinists drew up a national oath, or 
Covenant, by which they bound themselves to resist 
any attempt to change their religion. Rebellion 
quickly passed into open war, and the Covenanters 
invaded northern England. Charles was then obliged 
to summon Parliament in session. It met in 1640 and 
did not formally dissolve until twenty years later. 
Hence it came to be known as the Long Parliament. 
This body at once assumed the conduct of govern¬ 
ment. Under the leadership of John Hampden, John 
Pym, and Oliver Cromwell, it proceeded to abolish 
the royal courts which had tried cases arbitrarily 
without a jury. It forbade the imposition of “ship- 
money” and other irregular taxes. It also took away 
the king’s right of dissolving Parliament at his 
pleasure and ordered that at least one parliamentary 
session should be held every three years. These 
measures stripped the Crown of the despotic powers 
acquired by the Tudors and the Stuarts. 



OLIVER CROMWELL 

After the painting by Sir Peter Lely in 1653. 
Pitti Gallery, Florence. 























Struggle Against Stuart Absolutism 285 

The Long Parliament thus far had acted along the 
line of reformation rather than revolution. Had 
Charles been content to accept the new arrangements, 
there would have been little more trouble. But the 
proud and imperious king was only watching his 
chance to strike a blow at Parliament. Taking advan¬ 
tage of some differences of opinion among its mem¬ 
bers, Charles summoned his soldiers, marched to 
Westminster, and demanded the surrender of five 
leaders, including Pym and Hampden. Warned in 
time, they made their escape, and Charles did not 
find them in the chamber of the Commons. “Well, I 
see all the birds are flown,” he exclaimed, and walked 
out baffled. The king’s attempt to intimidate the 
Commons was a grave blunder. It showed beyond 
doubt that he would resort to force, rather than bend 
his neck to Parliament. Both Charles and Parlia¬ 
ment now began to gather troops and prepare for 
the inevitable conflict. 

The opposing parties seemed to be very evenly 
matched. Around the king rallied nearly all the 
nobles, the Anglican clergy, the Roman Catholics, a 
majority of the “squires,” or country gentry, and the 
members of the universities. The royalists received 
the name of “Cavaliers.” The parliamentarians, or 
“Roundheads,” were mostly recruited from the trad¬ 
ing classes in the towns and the small landowners in 
the country. The working people remained as a rule 
indifferent and took little part in the struggle. 

Both Pym and Hampden died in the second year of 
the war, and henceforth the leadership of the parlia¬ 
mentarians fell to Oliver Cromwell. He was a coun¬ 
try gentleman from the east of England, and Hamp¬ 
den’s cousin. Cromwell represented the university 


286 17th and 18th Centuries in Europe 

of Cambridge in the Long Parliament and displayed 
there great audacity in opposing the government. An 
unfriendly critic at this time describes “his counte¬ 
nance swollen and reddish, his voice sharp and 
untuneable, and his eloquence full of fervor.” 
Though a zealous Puritan, who believed himself to 
be the chosen agent of the Lord, Cromwell was not 
an ascetic. He hunted, hawked, played bowls and 
other games, had an ear for music, and valued art and 
learning. In public life he showed himself a states¬ 
man of much insight and a military genius. 

Fortune favored the royalists, until Cromwell 
assumed command of the parliamentary forces. To 
him was due the formation of a cavalry regiment of 
honest, sober Christians,” whose watchwords were 
texts from Scripture and who charged in battle sing¬ 
ing psalms. These “Ironsides,” as Cromwell said, 
“had the fear of God before them and made some 
conscience of what they did.” They were so success¬ 
ful that Parliament permitted Cromwell to reorgan¬ 
ize a large part of the army into the “New Model,” 
a body of professional, highly disciplined soldiers. 
The New Alodel defeated Charles decisively at the 

battle of Naseby, near the center of England (1645). 
Charles then surrendered to the Scotch, who soon 
turned him over to Parliament. 

The surrender of the king ended the Great Rebel¬ 
lion, but left the political situation in doubt. The 
Puritans by this time had divided into two rival sects. 
The Presbyterians wished to make the Church of 
England, like that of Scotland, Presbyterian in faith 
and worship. Through their control of Parliament, 
they were able to pass acts doing away with bishops! 
forbidding the use of the Book of Common Prayer, 


Struggle Against Stuart Absolutism 287 

and requiring every one to accept Presbyterian doc¬ 
trines. The other Puritan sect, known as Independ¬ 
ents, felt that religious beliefs should not be a matter 
of compulsion. They rejected both Anglicanism and 
Presbyterianism and desired to set up churches of 
their own, where they might worship as seemed to 
them right. The Independents had the powerful 
backing of Cromwell and the “New Model,” so that 
the stage was set for a quarrel between Parliament 
and the army. 

King Charles, though a prisoner in the power of 
his enemies, hoped to profit by their divisions. The 
Presbyterian majority in the House of Commons was 
willing to restore the king, provided he would give 
his assent to the establishment of Presbyterianism in 
England. But the army wanted no reconciliation 
with the captive monarch and at length took matters 
into its own hand. A party of soldiers, under the 
command of a Colonel Pride, excluded the Presby¬ 
terian members from the floor of the House, leaving 
the Independents alone to conduct the government. 
This action is known as “Pride's Purge.” Cromwell 
approved of it, and from this time he became the real 
ruler of England. 

The “Rump,” as the remnant of the House of Com¬ 
mons was contemptuously called, immediately 
brought the king before a High Court of Justice 
composed of his bitterest enemies. He refused to 
acknowledge the right of the court to try him and 
made no defense whatever. Charles was speedily 
convicted and sentenced to be beheaded, “as a tyrant, 
traitor, murderer, and public enemy to the good of 
the people.” He met death with quiet dignity and 
courage on a scaffold erected in front of Whitehall 


288 17th and 18th Centuries in Europe 

Palace in London. The king’s execution went far 
beyond the wishes of most Englishmen; “cruel neces¬ 
sity” formed its only justification; but it established 
once for all in England the principle that rulers are 
responsible to their subjects. 

The “Rump” also abolished the House of Lords 
and the office of king. It named a Council of State, 
most of whose members were chosen from the House 
of Commons, to carry on the government. England 
now became a national republic, or Commonwealth, 
the first in the history of the world. The new repub¬ 
lic was clearly the creation of a minority. Anglicans, 
Presbyterians, and Roman Catholics were ready to 
restore the monarchy, but as long as the power lay 
with the army, the small sect of Independents could 
impose its will on the great majority of the English 
people. 

Meanwhile the “Rump” had become more and 
more unpopular. Cromwell at length dissolved it 
by force. Another Parliament, made up of “God¬ 
fearing men,” proved equally incapable and after a 
few months resigned its authority into Cromwell’s 
hands. His reluctance to play the autocrat led him 
to accept a so-called Instrument of Government 
drawn up by some of his officers, and notable as the 
only written constitution which England has ever 
had. It is also of extreme interest as the first example 
of a constitution which attempts to draw a sharp 
dividing line between the powers of the legislative 
and executive departments. The Instrument of Gov¬ 
ernment vested supreme power in a single person 
styled the Lord Protector, holding office for life. 
Pie was to be assisted, and to some extent controlled, 
b\ a council and a parliament. The Protectorate 


The Restoration 


289 


which thus supplanted the Commonwealth, really 
formed a limited or constitutional monarchy in all 
but name. 

The Lord Protector governed England for five 
years. His successful conduct of foreign affairs gave 
to that country an importance in European politics 
which it had not enjoyed since the time of Elizabeth. 
He died in 1658, leaving the army without a master 
and the country without a settled government. Two 
years later the nation, now grown weary of military 
rule, called the eldest son of Charles I to the throne. 

It seemed, indeed, as if the Puritan Revolution had 
been a complete failure. But this was hardly true. 
The revolution arrested the growth of absolutism and 
divine right in England. It created among English¬ 
men a lasting hostility to despotic rule, whether exer¬ 
cised by King, Parliament, Protector, or army. 
Furthermore, it sent forth into the world ideas of 
popular sovereignty, which, during the eighteenth 
century, helped to produce the American and French 
revolutions. 

The Restoration and the “Glorious 
Revolution,” 1660-1714 

Charles II pledged himself to maintain Magna 
Carta, the Petition of Right, and various statutes 
limiting the royal power. The people of England 
wished to have a king, but they also wished their king 
to govern by the advice of Parliament. Charles, less 
obstinate and more astute than his father, recognized 
this fact, and, when a conflict threatened with his 
ministers or Parliament, always avoided it by timely 
concessions. Whatever happened, he used to say, he 
was resolved “never to set out on his travels again.” 


2Qo 17th and 18th Centuries in Europe 

Charles’s charm of manner, wit, and genial humor 
made him a popular monarch, in spite of his grave 
faults of character. He was a king who “never said 
a foolish thing and never did a wise one.” 

The Restoration brought back the Church of Eng¬ 
land, together with the Stuarts. Parliament, more 
intolerant than the king, made the use of the Book of 
Common Prayer compulsory and required ministers 
to express their consent to everything contained in it. 
Rather than do so, nearly two thousand clergymen 
resigned their positions. Among them were found 
Presbyterians, Independents (or Congregationalists), 
Baptists, and Quakers. The members of these sects, 
since they refused to accept the national Church, were 
henceforth classed as Dissenters, or Nonconformists. 
They might not hold meetings for worship, or teach 
in schools, or hold any public office. Thus Dissenters, 
as well as Roman Catholics, had to endure persecu¬ 
tion. 

One of the most important events belonging to the 
reign of Charles II was the passage by Parliament of 
the Habeas Corpus Act. The writ of habeas corpus 
is an order, issued by a judge, requiring a person held 
in custody to be brought before the court. If upon 
examination good reason is shown for keeping the 
prisoner, he is to be remanded for trial; otherwise he 
must either be freed or released on bail. This writ 
had been long used in England, and one of the clauses 
of Magna Carta expressly provided against arbitrary 
imprisonment. It had always been possible, how¬ 
ever, for the king or his ministers to order the arrest 
of a person considered dangerous to the State, without 
making any formal charge against him. The Habeas 
Corpus Act established the principle that every man, 


The Restoration 


291 


not charged with or convicted of a known crime, is 
entitled to his liberty. Most of the British possessions 
where the Common Law prevails have accepted the 
act, and it has been adopted by the United States. 

The reign of Charles II also saw the beginning of 
the modern party system in Parliament. Two oppos¬ 
ing parties took shape, very largely out of a religious 
controversy. The king, from his long life in France, 
was partial to Roman Catholicism, though he did not 
formally embrace that faith until the moment of 
death. His brother James, the heir to the throne, 
became an avowed Roman Catholic, much to the dis¬ 
gust of many members of Parliament. A bill was 
now brought forward to exclude Prince James from 
the succession, because of his conversion. Its sup¬ 
porters received the nickname of Whigs, while those 
who opposed it were called Tories. The former were 
successors of the old “Roundheads,” the latter, of the 
“Cavaliers.” The bill did not pass the House of 
Lords, but the two parties in Parliament continued to 
divide on other questions. They survive to-day as 
the Liberals and the Conservatives, and still dispute 
the government of England between them. 

Tames II lacked the attractive personality which 
had made his brother a popular ruler; moreover, he 
was a staunch believer in the divine right of kings. 
He soon quarreled with Parliament and further 
antagonized his Protestant subjects by “suspending” 
the laws against Roman Catholics and by appointing 
them to positions of authority and influence. Eng¬ 
lishmen might have tolerated James to the end of his 
reign (he was then nearing sixty), in the hope that he 
would be succeeded by his Protestant daughter Mary. 
But the birth in 1688 of a son to his Roman Catholic 


292 17th and 18th Centuries in Europe 

second wife changed the whole situation by opening 
up the prospect of a Roman Catholic succession to 
the throne. At last a number of Whig and Tory 
leaders invited William, prince of Orange, stad- 
holder or governor-general of Holland, to rescue 
England from Stuart despotism. 

William landed in England with a small army and 
marched unopposed to London. James II, deserted 
by his retainers and soldiers, soon found himself 
alone. He fled to France, where he lived the remain¬ 
der of his days as a pensioner at the French court. 
Parliament granted the throne conjointly to William 
and Mary, William to rule during his lifetime and 
Mary to have the succession if she survived him. 
Should they have no children, the throne was to go 
to Mary’s sister Anne. 

At the same time Parliament took care to perpetu¬ 
ate its own authority and the Protestant religion by 
enacting the Bill of Rights, which has a place by the 
side of Magna Carta and the Petition of Right among 
the great documents of English constitutional history. 

1 his act decreed that the sovereign must henceforth 
be a member of the Anglican Church. It forbade 
him to suspend the operation of the laws, or to levy 
money or maintain a standing army except by consent 
of Parliament. It also declared that election of mem¬ 
bers of Parliament should be free; that they should 
enjoy freedom of speech and action within the two 
Houses; and that excessive bail should not be 
required, or excessive fines imposed, or cruel and 
unusual punishments inflicted. Finally, it affirmed 
the right of subjects to petition the sovereign and 
ordered the holding of frequent Parliaments. These 
were not new principles of political liberty, but now 


The Restoration 


293 


the English people were strong enough to give them 
the binding form of laws. They reappear in the first 
ten amendments to the Constitution of the United 
States." 

Parliament also passed a Toleration Act, conceding 
to Dissenters the right of public worship, though not 
the right of holding any civil or military office. The 
Dissenters might now worship as they pleased, with¬ 
out fear of persecution. Unitarians and Roman 
Catholics, as well as Jews, were expressly excluded 
from the benefits of the act. The passage of this 
measure did much to remove religion from English 
politics as a vital issue. 

The Revolution of 1688-1689 struck a final blow 
at absolutism and divine right in England. An Eng¬ 
lish king became henceforth the servant of Parlia¬ 
ment, holding office only on good behavior. An act 
of Parliament had made him and an act of Parlia¬ 
ment might depose him. ft is well to remember, 
however, that the Revolution did not form a popular 
movement. It was a successful struggle for parlia¬ 
mentary supremacy on the part of the upper classes. 
The government of England still remained far 
removed from democracy. 

The supremacy won by Parliament was safe¬ 
guarded, a few years later, by the passage of the Act 
of Settlement. It provided that in case William III 
or his sister-in-law Anne died without heirs, the 
crown should pass to Sophia, electress of Hanover, 
and her descendants. She was the granddaughter of 
James I, and a Protestant. This arrangement deliber¬ 
ately excluded a number of nearer representatives of 
the Stuart house from the succession, because they 
were Roman Catholics. Parliament thus asserted in 


294 17th and 18th Centuries in Europe 


the strongest way the right of the English people to 
choose their own rulers. 

Queen Anne died in 1714, and in accordance with 
the Act of Settlement, George I, the son of Sophia of 
Hanover, ascended the throne. He was the first mem- 


Stuart and Hanoverian Dynasties 


James I (1603-1625) 


1 

Charles I 
(1625-1649) 

l 

1 

1 

Elizabeth, m. 

Charles II 

1 

James II 

(1660-1685) 

(1685-1688) 


•'Z - y 

Prince of Orange 


Palatinate 


Sophia, m. Ernest Augustus, 
Elector of Hanover 

George I 

(1714-1727) 


William III, m. Mary Anne r TT 

Grange^ 

King of I 

England (1689-1702) Frederick, Prince of Wales 

(d. i/5i) 

George III 
(1760-1820) 


George IV William IV 

(1820-1830" (1830-1837) 


Edward, Duke of Kent 

I 

Victoria 

(1837-1901) 


Edward VII 
(1901-1910) 


George V 
(1910- ) 


her of the Hanoverian dynasty, which has since con¬ 
tinued to reign in Great Britain. In 1917, however, 
the official name of the English ruling family 
changed to “House of Windsor.” 


was 














Absolutism of Louis XIV 


295 


Absolutism of Louis XIV in France, 1643-1715 

France in the seventeenth century furnished the 
best example of an absolute monarchy, during the 
reign of Louis XIV. Fie was a man of handsome 
presence, slightly below the middle height, with a 
prominent nose and abundant hair, which he allowed 
to fall over his shoulders. In manner he was digni¬ 
fied, reserved, courteous, and as majestic, it is said, 
in his dressing-gown as in his robes of state. A con¬ 
temporary wrote that he would have been every inch 
a king, “even if he had been born under the roof of a 
beggar.” Louis possessed much natural intelligence, 
a retentive memory, and great capacity for work. It 
must be added, however, that his general education 
had been neglected, and that throughout his life he 
remained ignorant and superstitious. Vanity formed 
a striking trait in the character of Louis. Fie 
accepted the most fulsome compliments and delighted 
to be known as the “Grand Monarch” and the “Sun- 
king.” 

The famous saying “I am the State,” though not 
uttered by Louis, accurately expressed his conviction 
that in him were embodied the power and greatness 
of France. Few monarchs have tried harder to 
justify their despotic rule. Fie was fond of gayety 
and sport, but he never permitted himself to be 
turned away from the punctual discharge of his royal 
duties. Until the close of his reign—one of the long¬ 
est in the annals of Europe—Louis devoted from five 
to nine hours a day to what he called the “trade of 
a king.” 

Louis gathered around him a magnificent court at 
Versailles, near Paris. Flere a whole royal city, with 




296 17th and 18th Centuries in Europe 

palaces, parks, groves, terraces, and fountains, sprang 
into being at his order. The gilded salons and mir¬ 
rored corridors of Versailles were soon crowded with 
members of the nobility. They now spent little time 
on their estates, preferring to remain at Versailles in 
attendance on the king, to whose favor they owed 
offices, pensions, and honors. The splendor of the 
French court cast its spell upon Europe. Every king 
and prince looked to Louis as the model of what a 
ruler should be and tried to imitate him. During this 
period the French language, manners, dress, art, and 
literature became the accepted standards of polite 
society in all civilized lands. 

How unwise it may be to concentrate authority in 
the hands of one man is shown by the melancholy 
record of the wars of Louis XIV. To make France 
powerful and gain fame for himself, Louis plunged 
his country into a series of struggles from which it 
emerged completely exhausted. He dreamed of dom¬ 
inating all western Europe, but his aggressions pro¬ 
voked against him a constantly increasing number of 
foes, who in the end proved to be too strong even 
for the king’s able generals and fine armies. 

Of the four great wars which filled a large part of 
Louis’ reign, all but the last were designed to extend 
the dominions of France on the east and northeast 
as far as the Rhine. That river in ancient times had 
separated Gaul and Germany, and Louis regarded 
it as a “natural boundary” of France. Some expan¬ 
sion in this direction had already been made by the 
I eace of Westphalia, when France gained much of 
Alsace and secured the recognition of her old claims 
to the bishoprics of Metz, Toul, and Verdun in Lor¬ 
raine. A treaty negotiated with Spain in 1659 also 




Absolutism of Louis XIV 


297 


gave to France possessions in Artois and Flanders. 
Louis thus had a good basis for operations in the 
Rhinelands. 

The French king began his aggressions by an effort 
to annex the Belgian or Spanish Netherlands, which 



then belonged to Spain. A triple alliance of Hol- 
land, England, and Sweden forced him to relinquish 
all his conquests, except some territory in Flanders 
(1668). Louis blamed the Dutch for his setback and 
determined to punish them. Moreover, the Dutch 
represented everything to which he was opposed, for 
Holland was a republic, the keen rival of France in 














298 i/th and 18th Centuries in Europe 

trade, and Protestant in religion. By skillful diplo¬ 
macy he persuaded England and Sweden to stand 
aloof, while his armies entered Holland and drew 
near to Amsterdam. At this critical moment Wil¬ 
liam, prince of Orange, became the Dutch leader. 
He was a descendant of that YY illiam the Silent, who, 
a century before, had saved the Dutch out of the 
hands of Spain. By William’s orders the Dutch cut 
the dikes and interposed a watery barrier to further 
advance by the b rench. William then formed 
another Continental coalition, which carried on the 
war till Louis signified his desire for peace. The 
Dutch did not lose a foot of territory, but Spain was 
obliged to cede to France the important province of 
Fi anche-Comte (1678). A few years later Louis 
sought additional territory in the Rhinelands, but 
again an alliance of Spain, Holland, Austria, and 
England compelled him to sue for terms (1697). 

The treaty of peace concluding the third war for 
the Rhine confirmed the French king in the posses¬ 
sion of Strasbourg, together with other cities and 
districts of Alsace which he had previously annexed. 
Alsace was now completely joined to France, except 
for some territories of small extent which were 
acquired about a century later. The Alsatians 
though mainly of Teutonic extraction, in process of 
time considered themselves French and lost all desire 
-for union Wlt h any of the German states. The greater 
part of Lorraine was not added to France until 1766, 
during the reign of Louis’s successor. The Lorrain- 
ers likewise, became thoroughly French in feeling. 

The European balance of power had thus far been 
preserved, but it was now threatened in another di¬ 
rection. The king of Spain lay dying, and as he was 


Absolutism of Louis XIV 


299 


without children or brothers to succeed him, all 
Europe wondered what would be the fate of his vast 
possessions in Europe and America. Louis had mar¬ 
ried one of his sisters, and the Holy Roman Emperor 
another, so both the Bourbons and the Austrian Haps- 
burgs could put forth claims to the Spanish throne. 
When the king died, it was found that he had left 
his entire dominions to one of Louis’s grandsons, in 
the hope that the French might be strong enough 
to keep them undivided. Though Louis knew that 
acceptance of the inheritance would involve a war 
with Austria and probably with England, whose 
ruler, William III, was Louis’s old foe, ambition 
triumphed over fear and the desire for glory over 
consideration for the welfare of France. Louis 
proudly presented his grandson to the court at Ver¬ 
sailles, saying, “Gentlemen, behold the king of 
Spain.” 

In the War of the Spanish Succession France and 
Spain faced the Grand Alliance, which included 
England, Holland, Austria, several of the German 
states, and Portugal. Europe had never known a 
war that concerned so many countries and peoples. 
William III died shortly after the outbreak of hos¬ 
tilities, leaving the continuance of the contest as a 
legacy to his sister-in-law, Queen Anne. England 
supplied the coalition with funds, a fleet, and also 
with the ablest commander of the age, the duke of 
Marlborough. In Eugene, prince of Savoy, the 
Allies had another skillful and daring general. Their 
great victory at Blenheim in 1704 was the first of a 
series of successes which finally drove the French out 
of Germany and Italy and opened the road to Paris. 
But dissensions among the Allies and the heroic 


3 °° 17th and 18th Centuries in Europe 

resistance of France and Spain enabled Louis to hold 
his enemies at bay, until the exhaustion of both sides 
led to the conclusion of the Peace of Utrecht. 

This peace ranks among the most important dip¬ 
lomatic arrangements of modern times. First, Louis’s 
grandson was recognized as king of Spain and her 
colonies, on condition that the Spanish and French 
crowns should never be united. Since this time 
Bourbon sovereigns have continued to rule in Spain. 
Next, the Austrian Hapsburgs gained the Spanish 
dominions in Italy, that is, Milan and Naples, the 
island of Sardinia, and the Belgian or Spanish Neth¬ 
erlands (thenceforth for a century called the Austrian 
Netherlands). Finally, England obtained from 
France extensive possessions in North America, and 
from Spain, Minorca and the rock of Gibraltar, com¬ 
manding the narrow entrance to the Mediterranean. 

Two of the smaller members of the Grand Alliance 
likewise profited by the Peace of Utrecht. The right 
of the elector of Brandenburg to hold the title of 
king of Piussia was acknowledged. This formed an 
important step in the fortunes of the Hohenzollern 
dynasty. The duchy of Savoy also became a kingdom 
and received the island of Sicily (shortly afterwards 
exchanged for Sardinia). The house of Savoy in the 
nineteenth century provided Italy with its present 
reigning family. 

France lost far less by the war than at one time 
seemed probable. Louis gave up his dream of dom¬ 
inating Europe, but he kept all the Continental 
acquisitions made earlier in his reign. Net the price 
of the kings warlike policy had been a heavy one. 
France paid it in the shape of famine and pestilence, 
excessive taxes, huge debts, and the impoverishment 





































































LOUIS XIV 

Alter the painting by Hyacinthe Rigaud 
Louvre, Paris. 







"ETRUS* 

lUSSORUM 


PRIMUS. v 
aMPZSATOS 


PETER THE GREAT 







Russia under Peter the Great 


3 °i 


of the people. Louis, now a very old man, survived 
the Peace of Utrecht only two years. As he lay dying, 
he turned to his great-grandson and heir and said, 
U Try to keep peace with your neighbors. I have been 



too great expenditure.” 

Russia under Peter the Great, 1689-1725 

The Russians at the opening of modern times 
seemed to be rather an Asiatic than a European peo¬ 
ple. Three hundred years of Mongol rule had iso¬ 
lated them from their Slavic neighbors and had 











































3«2 17th and 18th Centuries in Europe 

* 

interrupted the stream of civilizing influences which 
in earlier days flowed into Russia from Scandinavia 
and from the Byzantine Empire. The absence of 
seaports discouraged foreign commerce, through 
which European ideas and customs might have 
entered Russia, while at the same time the nature 
of the country made agriculture rather than industry 
the principal occupation. Most of the Russians were 
ignorant, superstitious peasants, who led secluded 
lives in small farming villages scattered over the • 
plains and throughout the forests. Even the inhabi¬ 
tants of the towns lacked the education and enlight¬ 
ened manners of the western peoples, whose ways they 
disliked and whose religion, whether Protestantism 
or Catholicism, they condemned as heretical. Russia, 
in short, needed to be restored to Europe, and Europe 
needed to be introduced to Russia. 

Russia under Ivan the Great (1462-1505), the tsar 
who expelled the Mongols, was still an inland state. 
The natural increase of her people, their migratory 
habits, and the desire for civilizing intercourse with 
other nations, impelled her expansion seawards. By 
the annexation of Novgorod and its possessions, Ivan 
carried Russian territory to the Arctic. Wars of his 
successors with the Tatars gave Russia command of 
the Volga from source to mouth and brought her to 
the Caspian. Russian emigrants also occupied the 
border country called the Ukraine, which lay on both 
sides of the lower Dnieper. Russia continued, how¬ 
ever, to be shut out from the Baltic by the Swedes and 
Poles and from the Black Sea by the Turks. 

The family of tsars, descended from the Northman 
Ruric in the ninth century, became extinct seven hun¬ 
dred years later, and disputes over the succession led 


Russia under Peter the Great 303 

to civil wars and foreign invasions. The Russians 
then proceeded to select a new tsar, and for this pur¬ 
pose a general assembly of nobles and delegates from 
the towns met at Moscow. Their choice fell upon 
one of their own number, Michael Romanov by name, 
whose family was related to the old royal line. He 
proved to be an excellent ruler in troublous times. 
His grandson was the celebrated Peter the Great. 

Peter became sole tsar of Russia when only seven¬ 
teen years of age. His character almost defies analy¬ 
sis. An English contemporary, who knew him well, 
described him as “a man of a very hot temper, soon 
inflamed, and very brutal in his passion.” Deeds of 
fiendish cruelty were congenial to him. After a 
mutiny of his bodyguard he edified the court by him¬ 
self slicing off the heads of the culprits. In order 
to quell opposition in his family, he had his wife 
whipped with the knout and ordered his own son to be 
tortured and executed. He was coarse, gluttonous, 
and utterly without personal dignity. The compan¬ 
ions of his youth were profligates; his banquets were 
orgies of dissipation. Yet Peter could be often frank 
and good-humored, and to his friends he was as loyal 
as he was treacherous to his foes. Whatever his 
weaknesses, few men have done more than Peter to 
change the course of history, and few have better 
deserved the appellation of “the Great.” 

Soon after becoming tsar Peter sent fifty young 
Russians of the best families to England, Holland, 
and Venice, to absorb all they could of European 
ideas. Afterward he came himself, traveling incog¬ 
nito as “Peter Mikhailov.” He spent two years 
abroad, particularly in Holland and England, where 
he studied ship-building and navigation. He also 


304 17th and 18th Centuries in Europe 

I 

collected miners, mechanics, engineers, architects, 
and experts of every sort for the roads and bridges, 
the ships and palaces, the schools and hospitals, which 
were to arise in Russia. 

Many of Peter’s reforms were intended to intro¬ 
duce the customs of western Europe into Russia. The 
long Asiatic robes of Russian nobles had to give way 
to short German jackets and hose. Long beards, 
which the people considered sacred, had to be shaved, 
or else a tax paid for the privilege of wearing one. 
Women, previously kept in seclusion, were permitted 
to appear in public without veils and to mingle at 
dances and entertainments with men. A Russian 
order of chivalry was founded. The Bible was trans¬ 
lated into the vernacular and sold at popular prices. 
Peter adopted the “Julian calendar,” in place of 
the old Russian calendar, which began the year on 
the first of September, supposed to be the date of the 
creation. He also improved the Russian alphabet by 
omitting some of its cumbersome letters and by sim¬ 
plifying others. 

Peter found in Russia no regular army; he organ¬ 
ized one after the German fashion. The soldiers 
(except the mounted warriors known as Cossacks) 
were uniformed and armed like European troops. 
He found no fleet; he built one, modeled upon that 
of Holland. He opened mines, cut canals, laid out 
roads, introduced sheep breeding, and fostered by 
protective tariffs the growth of silk and woolen manu¬ 
factures. He instituted a police system and a postal 
service. He established schools of medicine, engi¬ 
neering, and navigation, as well as those of lower 
grade. He also framed a code of laws based upon the 
legal systems of western Europe. 


Russia under Peter the Great 305 

Very different views have been expressed as to the 
value of Peter’s work. It is said, on the one side, that 
Russia could only be made over by such measures as 
he used; that the Russian people had to be dragged 
from their old paths and pushed on the broad road 
of progress. On the other side, it is argued that 
Peter’s reforms were too sudden, too radical, and too 
little suited to the Slavic national character. The 
upper classes acquired only a veneer of western civili¬ 
zation, and with it many vices. The nobles continued 
to be indolent, corrupt, and indifferent to the public 
welfare. The clergy became merely the tools of the 
tsar. The common people remained as ignorant and 
oppressed as ever and without any opportunity of 
self-government. Whatever may be the truth as to 
these two views, no one disputes the fact that in a 
single reign, by the action of one man, Russia began 
to pass from semi-barbarism to civilization. 

The remaking of Russia according to European 
models formed only a half of Peter’s program. His 
foreign policy was equally ambitious. He realized 
that Russia needed readier access to the sea than 
could be found through the Arctic port of Archangel. 
Peter made little headway against the Turks, who 
controlled the Black Sea, but twenty years of inter¬ 
mittent warfare with the Swedes enabled him to 
acquire the Swedish provinces on the eastern shore 
of the Baltic. Here in the swamps of the river Neva, 
not far from the Gulf of Finland, Peter built a new 
and splendid capital, giving it the German name 
of (St.) Petersburg. He had at last realized his 
long-cherished dream of opening a “window” 
through which the Russian people might look into 
Europe. 


306 17th and 18th Centuries in Europe 


Russia under Catherine II, 1762-1796 

Shortly after the death of Peter the Great, at the 
early age of fifty-three, the male line of the Romanov 
dynasty became extinct. The succession now passed 
to women, who intermarried with German princes 
and thus increased the German influence in Russia. 
It was a German princess, Catherine II, who com¬ 
pleted Peter’s work of remaking Russia into a Euro¬ 
pean state. She, also, has been called “the Great,” a 
title possibly merited by her achievements, though not 
by her character. Catherine came to Russia as the 
wife of the heir-apparent. Once in her adopted 
country, she proceeded to make herself in all ways a 
Russian, learning the language and even conforming, 
at least outwardly, to the Orthodox (or Russian) 
Church. Her husband was a weakling, and Cathe¬ 
rine managed to get rid of him after he had reigned 
only six months. She then mounted the throne and 
for thirty-four years ruled Russia with a firm hand. 

The defeat of Sweden left Poland and Turkey as 
the two countries which still blocked the path of 
Russia toward the sea. Catherine warred against 
them throughout her reign. She took the lion’s share 
of Poland, when that unfortunate kingdom, as we 
shall shortly learn, was divided among Russia, Aus¬ 
tria, and Prussia. Catherine also secured from the 
Turks an outlet for Russia on the Black Sea, though 
she never realized her dream of expelling them from 
European soil. 

When Constantinople fell to the Turks in 14^3, 
their European dominions already included a consid- 
eiable part of the Balkan Peninsula. The two cen¬ 
turies following witnessed the steady progress of the 


Russia under Catherine II 


307 


Ottoman arms, until, of all the Balkan states, only 
tiny Montenegro preserved its independence. Press¬ 
ing northward, the Turks conquered part of Hungary 
and made the rest of that country a dependency. 
They overran the Crimea and bestowed it upon a 
Mongol khan as a tributary province. They annexed 
Egypt, Syria, Armenia, Mesopotamia, and the coast 
of northern Africa. The Black Sea and the eastern 
Mediterranean became Turkish lakes. 

Two dramatic events showed that the Christian 
soldiery of Europe could still oppose a successful 
resistance to the Moslem warriors. The first was the 
crippling of Turkish sea-power by the combined 
fleets of Venice, Genoa, and Spain at a naval battle 
in the Gulf of Lepanto, off the western coast of 
Greece (1371). The second was the defeat suffered 
by the Turks under the walls of Vienna (1683). 
They marched on the Austrian capital, two hundred 
thousand strong, laid siege to it, and would have taken 
it but for the timely appearance of a relieving army 
commanded by the Polish king, John Sobieski. 
Poland at that time saved Austria from destruction 
and definitely stopped the land advance of the Turks 
in Europe. 

After 1683 the boundaries of European Turkey 
gradually receded. The Hapsburgs won back most 
of Hungary by the close of the seventeenth century 
and during the eighteenth century further enlarged 
their possessions at the expense of the sultan. Cathe¬ 
rine II, as the result of two wars with the Turks, 
secured the Crimea and the northern coast of the 
Black Sea. Russian merchant ships also received the 
right of free navigation in the Black Sea and of access 
through the Bosporus and the Dardanelles to the 


308 17th and 18th Centuries in Europe 

Mediterranean. In this way Catherine opened for 
Russia another “window” on Europe. 

Turkey lost more than territory. Russian consuls 
were admitted to Turkish towns, and Russian res¬ 
idents in Turkey were granted the free exercise of 
their religion. As time went on, the tsars even 
claimed the right of protecting Christian subjects of 
the sultan and consequently of interfering at will in 
Turkish affairs. The sultan thus tended to become 
the “sick man” of Europe, the disposition of whose 
processions would henceforth form one of the thorny 
problems of European diplomacy. In a word, what 
is called the Eastern Question began. 

Austria and Maria Theresa, 1740-1780 

The Hapsburgs were originally feudal lords of a 
small district in what is now northern Switzerland, 
where the ruins of their ancestral castle may still 
be seen. Count Rudolf, the real maker of the family 
fortunes, secured the archduchy of Austria, with its 
capital of Vienna, and in 1273 was chosen Holy 
Roman Emperor. The imperial title afterward 
became hereditary in the Hapsburg dynasty. 

The name “Austria” is loosely applied to all the 
territories which the Hapsburgs acquired in the 
course of centuries, by conquest, marriage, or inheri¬ 
tance. By the eighteenth century they had come to 
rule over the most extraordinary jumble of peoples 
to be found in Europe. There were Germans in 
Austria pioper and Silesia, Czechs in Bohemia and 
Moravia, Magyars, Slovaks, Rumanians, Croatians, 
and Slovenians in Hungary and its dependencies, 
Italians in Milan and Tuscany, and Flemings and 
Walloons in the Netherlands. It was impossible to 































































Prussia and Frederick die Great 


309 


group such widely scattered peoples into one central¬ 
ized state; it was equally impossible to form them 
into a federation. Their sole bond of union was a 
common allegiance to the Hapsburg monarch. 

The Hapsburg realm threatened to break up in the 
eighteenth century upon the death of the emperor 
Charles VI, who lacked male heirs. Charles, how¬ 
ever, had made a so-called Pragmatic Sanction, or 
solemn compact, declaring his dominions to be indi¬ 
visible and leaving them to his eldest daughter, Maria 
Theresa. Most of the European powers pledged 
themselves by treaty to observe this arrangement. 

The emperor died in 1740 and Maria Theresa 
became archduchess of Austria, queen of Hungary, 
queen of Bohemia, and sovereign of all the other 
Hapsburg lands. She was then only twenty-three 
years old, strikingly handsome, and gifted with much 
charm of manner. Her youth, her beauty, and her 
sex might have entitled her to consideration by those 
states which had agreed to respect the Pragmatic 
Sanction. But a paper bulwark could not safeguard 
Austria against Prussia and Prussia’s allies. 

Prussia and Frederick the Great, 1740-1786 

Prussia, the creator of modern Germany, was the 
creation of the Hohenzollerns. Excepting Frederick 
the Great, no Hohenzollern deserves to be ranked as 
a genius; but it would be hard to name another 
dynasty with so many able, ambitious, and unscru¬ 
pulous rulers. The Hohenzollerns prided themselves 
on the fact that almost every member of the family 
enlarged the possessions received from his ancestors. 
They did this by purchase, by inheritance, by shrewd 
diplomacy, and, most of all, by conquest. 


3 IQ i/th and 18th Centuries in Europe 

I he veil of obscurity hanging over the early his¬ 
tory of the Hohenzollerns lifts early in the fifteenth 
century, when one of them received the mark of 
Brandenburg from the Holy Roman Emperor^ as 
compensation for various sums of money advanced to 
him. Brandenburg in the Middle Ages had formed 
a German colony planted among the Slavs beyond 
the Elbe. With the margraviate went the electoral 
dignity, that is to say, the ruler of Brandenburg was 
one of the seven German princes who enjoyed the 
privilege of choosing the emperor. 

The Hohenzollerns as yet had no connection with 
Prussia. That country received its name from the 
Borussi, a heathen people most closely related to the 
Lithuanians. The Borussi occupied the Baltic coast 
east of the Vistula. They were conquered and well- 
nigh exterminated in the thirteenth century by the 
Teutonic Knights, a military-religious order which 
arose during the crusades. The Prussian landed 
aristocracy (Junkers) has largely descended from 
these hard-riding, hard-fighting, fierce, cruel knights. 
The decline of their order in the fifteenth century 
enabled the king of Poland to annex West Prussia. 
During the Reformation the Teutonic grand master, 
who was a near relative of the Hohenzollerns of 
Brandenburg, dissolved the order and changed East 
I russia into a secular duchy. His family became 
extinct early in the seventeenth century, and the 
duchy then passed to the elector of Brandenburg. 

The period between the close of the Thirty Years’ 
War and the accession of Frederick the Great saw 
many additions to the Hohenzollern domains. The 
Hohenzollerns at length became powerful enough to 
aspire to royal dignity. At the outbreak of the War 



FREDERICK THE GREAT 

After the painting by Antoine Pesne. 
Berlin Museum. 
















Prussia and Frederick die Great 311 

of the Spanish Succession, the emperor, who was 
anxious to receive the elector’s support, allowed him 
to assume the title of “king” and to claim, henceforth, 
that he ruled by divine right. Prussia, rather than 
Brandenburg, gave its name to the new kingdom, 
because the former was an independent state, while 
the latter was a member of the Holy Roman Empire. 

Only a strong hand could hold together the scat¬ 
tered possessions of the Hohenzollerns. Their hand 
was strong. No monarchs of the age exercised more 
unlimited authority or required more complete obedi¬ 
ence from their subjects. According to the Hohen- 
zollern principle, the government could not be too 
absolute, provided it was efficient. The ruler, work¬ 
ing through his ministers, who were merely his clerks, 
must foster agriculture, industry, and commerce, pro¬ 
mote education, and act as the guide of his people 
in religion and morals. 

The Hohenzollerns devoted themselves consist¬ 
ently to the upbuilding of their military forces. They 
wanted an army powerful enough to defend a king¬ 
dom without natural boundaries and stretching in 
detached provinces all the way from the Rhine to the 
Niemen. The soldiers at first were volunteers, 
recruited in different parts of Germany, but it 
became necessary to fill up the gaps in the ranks by 
compulsory levies among the peasants. Carefully 
trained officers, appointed from the nobility and 
advanced only on merit, enforced an iron discipline. 
The soldiers, it was said, feared their commanders 
more than they did the enemy. 

Frederick the Great became king at the age of 
twenty-eight. He was rather below the average 
height and inclined to stoutness, good looking, with 


3 12 17th and 18th Centuries in Europe 

the fair hair of North Germans and blue-gray eyes 
of extraordinary brilliancy. By nature he seems to 
have been thoroughly selfish and unsympathetic, 
cynical and crafty. He was not a man to inspire 
affection among his intimates, but with the mass of 
his subjects he was undeniably popular. Innumer¬ 
able stories circulated in Prussia about the simplicity, 

good humor, and devotion to duty of old “Father 
Fritz.” 

The year 1740, when both Frederick and Maria 
Theresa mounted the throne, saw the beginning of a 
long struggle between them. The responsibility for 
it 1 ests on b rederick s shoulders, ff he Prussian king 
coveted Silesia, an Austrian province lying to the 
southeast of Brandenburg and mainly German in 
population. Of all the Hapsburg possessions it was 
the one most useful to the Hohenzollerns. Frederick 
suddenly led his army into Silesia and overran the 
country without much difficulty. No justification 
existed foi this action. As the king afterward con¬ 
fessed in his Memoirs, “Ambition, interest, and desire 
of making people talk about me carried the day; and 
T decided for war.” 

Frederick s action precipitated a general European 
conflict. France, Spain, and Bavaria allied them¬ 
selves with Prussia, in order to partition the Haps¬ 
burg possessions, while Great Britain and Holland, 
anxious to preserve the balance of power, took the 
side of Austria. Things might have gone hard with 
Maria Theresa but for the courage and energy which 
she displayed and the support of her Hungarian sub¬ 
jects. In 1748 all the warring countries agreed to a 
mutual restoration of conquests (with the exception 
of Silesia) and signed the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle. 


Prussia and Frederick die Great 313 

Maria Theresa still hoped to recover her lost prov¬ 
ince. As most of the European sovereigns were either 
afraid or jealous of Frederick, she found no great 
difficulty in forming a coalition against him. Russia, 
France, Sweden, and Saxony entered it. Most of 
Europe thus united in arms to dismember the small 
Prussian state. 

It happened, however, that at the head of this small 
state was a man of military genius, capable of infus¬ 
ing into others his own undaunted spirit and sup¬ 
ported by subjects disciplined, patient, and loyal. 
Furthermore, Great Britain in the Seven Years’ War 
was an ally of Prussia. British gold subsidized the 
Prussian armies, and British troops, by fighting the 
French in Germany, India, and America, weakened 
Prussia’s most dangerous enemy. Frederick con¬ 
ducted a purely defensive warfare, thrusting now 
here and now there against his slower-moving adver¬ 
saries, who never learned to act in concert and exert 
their full force simultaneously. Even so, the struggle 
was desperately unequal. The Russians occupied 
East Prussia, penetrated Brandenburg, and even cap¬ 
tured Berlin. Faced by the gradual wearing-down 
of his armies, an empty treasury, and an impoverished 
country, Frederick more than once meditated suicide. 
What saved him was the accession of a new tsar. 
This ruler happened to be a warm admirer of the 
Prussian king and at once withdrew from the war. 
Maria Theresa, deprived of her eastern ally, now had 
to come to terms and leave Frederick in secure posses¬ 
sion of Silesia. Soon afterward the Peace of Paris 
between France and Great Britain brought the Seven 
Years’War to an end (1763). 

This most bloody contest, which cost the lives of 


3 1 4 ijth and 18th Centuries in Europe 

nearly a million men, seemed to settle little or nothing 
in Europe, except the ownership of Silesia. Yet the 
Seven ^ ears War really marks an epoch in European 
history. The young Prussian kingdom appeared 
henceforth as one.of the great powers of the Conti¬ 
nent and as the only rival in Germany of the old 
Hapsburg monarchy. From this time it was inevit¬ 
able that Prussia and Austria would struggle for 
predominance, and that the smaller German states 
would group themselves around one or the other. 
Frederick, of course, like all the Hohenzollerns, 
fought simply for the aggrandizement of Prussia, 
but the results of his work were disclosed a century 
later when the German Empire came into being. 

The Partitions of Poland, 1772-1795 

Our first glimpse of the Poles reveals them as a 
Slavic people, still wild and heathen, who occupied 
the region between the upper waters of the Oder and 
the Vistula. They began to adopt Roman Chris¬ 
tianity toward the close of the tenth century. The 
Poles suffered terribly from the Mongol invasions, 
but, unlike the Russians, never bowed to the yoke of 
the Great Khan. The order of Teutonic Knights also 
made persistent attacks on the Poles, thus endeavor¬ 
ing, even in medieval times, to bring their country 
within the German sphere of influence. 

The early history of the Poles is closely linked with 
that of the Lithuanians, a kindred though distinct 
people. The Lithuanians originally dwelt among 
the forests and marshes of the Niemen River. They 
were almost the last of the barbarous inhabitants of 
Euiope to be civilized and Christianized. 

Common fear, at first of the Germans and then of 


































































































The Partitions of Poland 315 

the Russians, brought the Poles and Lithuanians 
together. By the Union of Lublin (1569) Poland 
proper and the grand duchy of Lithuania became a 
single state, with one king, one Diet, and one cur¬ 
rency. After the union the old Polish capital of 
Cracow gave way to Warsaw, now one of the largest 
and finest cities of eastern Europe. 

Poland, as the new state may be henceforth called, 
was badly made. It formed an immense, monoto¬ 
nous plain, reaching from the Baltic almost to the 
Black Sea. No natural barriers of rivers or moun¬ 
tains clearly separated the country from Russia on 
the east, the lands of the Hohenzollerns and Haps- 
burgs on the west, and the Ottoman Empire on the 
south. Even the Baltic Sea did not provide a con¬ 
tinuous boundary on the north, for here the duchy of 
East Prussia cut deeply into Polish territory. Poland, 
with its artificial frontiers, lacked geographical unity. 

Poland was not racially compact. Besides Poles 
and Lithuanians, the inhabitants included many Rus¬ 
sians, a considerable number of Germans and Swedes, 
and a large Jewish population in the towns. The 
differences between them in race and language were 
accentuated by religious dissensions. The Poles and 
most of the Lithuanians belonged to the Roman 
Catholic Church, the Germans and Swedes adhered 
to Lutheranism, while the Prussians accepted the 
Orthodox faith. 

Feudalism, though almost extinct in western 
Europe, flourished in Poland. There were more than 
a million Polish nobles, mostly very poor, but each 
one owning a share of the land. No large and 
wealthy middle class existed. The peasants were 
miserable serfs. 


3 t 6 17th and 18th Centuries in Europe 



■ 


Waffle 

V ilna +* 
t 


m$ m 


' 


S s J ^ Warsaw 
Niv'lX. 1 






Boundaries of I 
Poland in 1772 A. D 


Black 

Sea 


Longitude East 24°from Greenwich 


the m-n.works 


The Polish monarchy was elective, not hereditary, 
an arrangement which converted the kings into mere 
puppets of the noble electors. A Polish sovereign 
could neither make war or peace, nor pass laws, nor 
levy taxes without the consent of the Polish national 


Partitions of Poland, 1772, 1793, 1795 a. d. 

assembly. In this body, which was composed of rep¬ 
resentatives of the nobility, any member by his single 
adverse vote—“I object”—could block proposed 
legislation. The result was that the nobles seldom 
passed any measures except those which increased 
their own power and privileges. The wonder is, not 
that Poland collapsed, but that it survived so long 
under such a system of government. 












































































































The Partitions of Poland 


3 ] 7 


Russia, Austria, and Prussia had long interfered 
in the choice of Polish rulers. Now they began to 
annex Polish territory. It was not necessary to con¬ 
quer the country, but only to divide it up like a thing 
ownerless and dead. In 1772 Catherine II joined 
with Maria Theresa and Frederick the Great in the 
first partition of Poland. Russia took a strip east of 
the Diina and Dnieper rivers, inhabited entirely by 
Russians. Austria took Galicia and neighboring 
lands occupied by Poles and Russians. Prussia re¬ 
ceived the coveted West Prussia, whose inhabitants 
were mainly Germans. Poland lost about one-third 
of its territory. 

The fi rst partition opened the eyes of the Polish 
nobles to the ruin which threatened their country. 
Something like a patriotic spirit now developed, and 
efforts began to remove the glaring absurdities of the 
old government. The reform movement encoun¬ 
tered the opposition of the neighboring sovereigns, 
who wished to keep Poland as weak as possible in or¬ 
der to have an excuse for further spoliation. The 
second partition (1793), in which only Russia and 
Prussia shared, cut deeply into Poland. Two years 
later came the final dismemberment of the country 
among its three neighbors. The brave though futile 
resistance of the Polish patriots, led by Kosciuszko, 
who had fought under Washington in the Revolu¬ 
tionary War, threw a gleam of glory upon the last 
days of the expiring kingdom. 

Neither Great Britain nor France tried in 1772 to 
save the Poles. Great Britain was fully occupied 
with her rebellious American colonies, while France, 
then ruled by the wretched Louis XV., had for the 
time being lost all weight in the councils of Europe. 


3*8 17tli and 18th Centuries in Europe 


The suggestion for the dismemberment of Poland 
came from Frederick the Great, who with his usual 
frankness admitted that it was an act of brigands. In 
Catherine II he found an ally as unprincipled as 
himself. Maria Theresa expressed horror at the crime 
and even declared that it would remain a blot on her 
whole reign. “She wept indeed, but she took.” 
This shameful violation of international law pro¬ 
duced a Polish Question. From the eighteenth cen¬ 
tury to the twentieth century the Poles never ceased to 
be restless and unhappy under foreign overlords. 
They developed a new national consciousness after 
the loss of their freedom, and the severest measures 
of repression failed to break their spirit. The restor¬ 
ation of Poland as an independent country was one 
happy result of the World War. 


Is 


CHAPTER IX 

COMMERCE AND COLONIES DURING THE SEVEN¬ 
TEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURES 

Mercantilism and Trading Companies 

PORTUGAL and Spain had chiefly profited by the 
geographical discoveries and colonizing movements 
of the sixteenth century. The decline of these two 
countries enabled other European nations to step into 
their place as rivals for commerce, colonies, and the 
sovereignty of the seas. The Dutch were first in the 
field, followed later by the French and the English. 

Many motives inspired the colonizing movement 
of the seventeenth century. Political aims had con¬ 
siderable weight. Holland, France, and England 
wanted dependencies overseas as a counterpoise to 
those obtained by Portugal and Spain. The reli¬ 
gious impulse also played a part, as when Jesuit mis¬ 
sionaries penetrated the American wilderness to 
convert the Indians to Christianity and when the Pil¬ 
grim Fathers sought in the New World a refuge from 
persecution. But the main motive for colonization 
was economic in character. Colonies were planted 

in order to furnish the home land with raw materials 

• 

for its manufactures, new markets, and favorable op¬ 
portunities for the investment of capital in commerce 
and industry. 

Most European statesmen at this time accepted the 
principles of the mercantile system. Mercantil¬ 
ism is the name given to an economic doctrine which 


319 


320 


Commerce and Colonies 


emphasized the importance of manufactures and for¬ 
eign trade, rather than agriculture and domestic 
trade, as sources of natural wealth. Some mercan¬ 
tilists even argued that the prosperity of a nation is in 
exact proportion to the amount of money in circu¬ 
lation within its borders. They urged, therefore, that 
each country should so conduct its dealings with other 
countries as to attract to itself the largest possible 
share of the precious metals. This could be most 
easily done by fostering exports of manufactures, 
through bounties and special privileges, and by dis¬ 
couraging imports, except of raw materials. If the 
country sold more to foreigners than it bought of 
them, then there would be a “favorable balance 
of trade,” and this balance foreigners would have to 
make up in coin or bullion. 

Large and flourishing colonies seemed essential to 
the success of the mercantile system. Colonies were 
viewed simply as estates to be worked for the advan¬ 
tage of the country fortunate enough to possess them. 
The home government did its best to prevent other 
governments from trading with its dependencies. At 
the same time, it either prohibited or placed serious 
restrictions on colonial manufactures which might 
compete with those of the mother country. Portu¬ 
gal and Spain in the sixteenth century, and now 
Holland, France, and England in the seventeenth 
century, pursued this colonial policy. 

The home government .did not itself engage in 
colonial commerce. It ceded this privilege to private 
companies organized for the purpose. A company, 
in return for the monopoly of trade with the inhabi¬ 
tants of a colony, was expected to govern and protect 
them. 
















































































































3 21 


The Dutch Colonial Empire 

The first form of association was the regulated 
company. Each member, after paying the entrance 
fee, traded with his own capital at his own risk and 
kept his profits to himself. After a time this loose 
association gave way to the joint-stock company. 
The members contributed to a common fund and, in¬ 
stead of themselves trading, intrusted the manage¬ 
ment of the business to a board of directors. Any 
one who invested his capital would then receive a 
“dividend” on his “shares” of the joint stock, pro¬ 
vided the enterprise was successful. The joint-stock 
companies of the seventeenth century thus formed a 
connecting link with modern corporations. 

Trading companies were very numerous. For in¬ 
stance, Holland, France, England, Sweden, and Den¬ 
mark, as well as Scotland and Prussia, each chartered 
its own “East India Company.” England had many 
trading companies, particularly those which operated 
in the Baltic lands, Russia, Turkey, India, Morocco, 
West Africa, and North America. 

The Dutch Colonial Empire 

Holland lies at the mouths of the largest rivers of 
western Europe, the Scheldt, Meuse, and Rhine, thus 
securing easy communication with the interior. It 
is not far distant from Denmark and Norway and is 
only a few hours’ sail from the French and English 
coasts. These advantages of position, combined with 
a small, infertile territory, never capable of support¬ 
ing more than a fraction of the inhabitants by agri¬ 
culture, naturally turned the Dutch to the sea. They 
began their maritime career as fishermen, “exchang¬ 
ing tons of herring for tons of gold,” and gradually 
built up an extensive transport trade between the 


322 


Commerce and Colonies 


Mediterranean and the Baltic lands. After the dis¬ 
covery of the Cape route to the East Indies, Dutch 
traders met Portuguese merchants at Lisbon and 
there obtained spices and other eastern wares for dis¬ 
tribution throughout Europe. 

But the Dutch were soon to become seamen on a 
much more extensive scale. The union of Portugal 
with Spain in 1581 enabled Philip II to close the 
port of Lisbon to the Netherlander, who had already 
begun their revolt against the Spanish monarch. 
Philip also seized a large number of Dutch ships 
lying in Spanish and Portuguese harbors, thus dis¬ 
closing his purpose to destroy, if possible, the profit¬ 
able commerce of his enemies. The Dutch now began 
to make expeditions directly to the East Indies, whose 
trade had been monopolized by Portugal for almost 
a century. They captured many Portuguese and 
Spanish ships, obtained ports on the coasts of Africa 
and India, and established themselves securely in the 
Far East. 

The Dutch government presently chartered the 
East India Company and gave to it the monopoly of 
trade and rule from the Cape of Good Hope east¬ 
ward to the Strait of Magellan. The company oper¬ 
ated chiefly in the rich islands of the Malay 
Archipelago. Here much bitter fighting took place 
with the Portuguese, who were finally driven from 
nearly all of their eastern possessions. Ceylon, Ma¬ 
lacca, Sumatra, Java, Celebes, and the Moluccas, or 
Spice Islands, passed into the hands of the Dutch. 
The headquarters of the Dutch East India Company 
were located at Batavia in Java. This city still re¬ 
mains one of the leading commercial centers of the 
Far East. 


The Dutch Colonial Empire 323 

The Dutch possessions included the Cape of Good 
Hope, where the Dutch East India Company made a 
permanent settlement (Cape Town). It was in¬ 
tended, at first, to be simply a way-station or port of 
refreshment for ships on the route to the Indies. 
Before long, however, Dutch emigrants began to 
arrive in increasing numbers, together with Hugue¬ 
nots who had fled from France to escape persecution. 
These farmer-settlers, or Boers, passed slowly into the 
interior and laid there the foundation of Dutch sway 
in South Africa. The Cape of Good Hope became a 
British possession at the opening of the nineteenth 
century, but the Boer republics retained their inde¬ 
pendence until our own day. 

Fired by their success and enriched by their gains 
in the East, the Dutch started out to form another 
colonial empire in the West. It was a Dutchman, 
Henry Hudson, who, seeking a northwest passage to 
the East Indies, discovered in 1609 the river which 
bears his name. The Dutch sent out ships to trade 
with the natives and built a fort on Manhattan 
Island. Thd Dutch West India Company soon 
received a charter for commerce and colonization be¬ 
tween the west coast of Africa and the east coast of 
the Americas. The company’s little station on Man¬ 
hattan Island became the flourishing port of New 
Amsterdam, from which the Dutch settlement of New 
Netherland spread up the Hudson River. The com¬ 
pany also secured a large part of Guiana, as well as 
some of the West Indies. 

The Dutch in the seventeenth century were the 
leaders of commercial Europe. They owned more 
merchant ships than any other people and almost 
monopolized the carrying trade from the East Indies 


3 2 4 Commerce and Colonies 

and between the Mediterranean and the Baltic. Yet 
with the advent of the eighteenth century the Dutch 
had begun to fall behind their French and English 
rivals in the race for commerce and colonies. They 
suffered from trade warfare with England during the 
Commonwealth and the reign of Charles II. The 
long and exhausting War of the Spanish Succession, 
in which Holland was a member of the Grand Alli¬ 
ance against Louis XIV, struck a further blow at 
Dutch prosperity. Though Holland fell from the 
first rank of commercial states, it has kept most of its 
dominions overseas to the present time. 

Rivalry of France and England in India 

(to 1763) 

The Portuguese and Dutch enjoyed a profitable 
trade with India, which supplied them with cotton, 
indigo, spices, dyes, drugs, precious stones, and other 
articles of luxury in European demand. In the 
seventeenth century, however, the French and the 
English became the principal competitors for Indian 
trade, and in the eighteenth century the rivalry be¬ 
tween them led to the defeat of the French and the 
secure establishment of England’s rule over India. 
A region half'as large as Europe began to pass under 
the control of a single European power. 

The conquest of India was made possible by the 
decline of the Alogul (or IMongol) Empire, which 
had been founded by the Turkish chieftain Baber in 
the sixteenth century. That empire, though re¬ 
nowned for its pomp and magnificence, never 
achieved a real unification of India. The country con¬ 
tinued to be a collection of separate provinces, whose 
inhabitants were isolated from one another by differ- 



THE TAJ MAHAL, AGRA 

Erected by the Mogul emperor, Shah Jehan, as a tomb for his favorite wife. Muntaz 
Mahal. It was begun in 1632 a.d. and was completed in twenty-two years. The material 
is pure white marble, inlaid with jasper, agate, and other precious stones. The building 
rests on a marble terrace, at each corner of which rises a tall, graceful minaret. The 
extreme delicacy of the Taj Mahal and the richness of its ornamentation make it a 
masterpiece of architecture. 
























































Rivalry of France and England 325 

ences of race, language, and religion. The Indian 
peoples had no feeling of nationality, and when the 
Mogul Empire broke up they were ready, with per¬ 
fect indifference, to accept any other government 
able to keep order among them. 

Neither France nor England began by making an¬ 
nexations in India. Each country merely established 
an East India company, giving to it a monopoly of 
trade between India and the home land. The French 
company, chartered during the reign of Louis XIV, 
had its headquarters at Pondicherry, on the southeast¬ 
ern coast of India. The English company, which 
received its first charter from Queen Elizabeth, 
possessed three widely separated settlements at Bom¬ 
bay, Madras, and Calcutta. 

The French were the first to attempt the task of 
empire making in India, under the leadership of 
Dupleix, the able governor-general of Pondicherry. 
Dupleix saw clearly that the dissolution of the Mogul 
Empire and the defenseless condition of the native 
states opened the way to the European conquest of 
India. In order that the French should profit by 
this unique opportunity, he entered into alliance with 
some of the Indian princes, fortified Pondicherry, 
and managed to form an army by enlisting native sol¬ 
diers (“sepoys”), who were drilled by French of¬ 
ficers. The English afterwards did the same thing, 
and to this day “sepoys” comprise the bulk of the 
Indian forces of Great Britain. Upon the outbreak 
of the War of the Austrian Succession the French 
captured Madras, but it was restored to the English 
by the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle. Dupleix contin¬ 
ued, however, to extend French influence in the south 
and east of India. 


326 Commerce and Colonies 

The English could not look unconcernedly upon 
the progress of their French rivals, and it was a 



young Englishman, Robert Clive, whose genius 
checkmated Dupleix’s ambitious schemes. To Clive, 
more than to any other man, Great Britain owes the 





















































































































































































Rivalry of France and England 327 

beginning of her present Indian Empire. Clive had 
been a clerk in the employ of the East India Com¬ 
pany at Madras, but he soon got an ensign’s commis¬ 
sion and entered upon a military career. His first 
success was gained in southeastern India. Here he 
managed to overthrow an upstart prince whom 
Dupleix supported and to restore English influence 
in that part of the peninsula. Dupleix was recalled 
in disgrace to France, where he died a disappointed 
man. 

Clive now found an opportunity for even greater 
service. The native ruler of Bengal, a man ferocious 
in temper and consumed with hatred of the English, 
suddenly captured Calcutta. He allowed one hun¬ 
dred and forty-six prisoners to be confined in a tiny 
room, where they passed the sultry night without 
water. Next morning only twenty-three came forth 
alive from the “Black Hole.” This atrocity was 
sufficiently avenged by the wonderful victory of 
Plassey, in which Clive, with a handful of soldiers, 
overthrew an Indian army of fifty thousand men. 
Plassey showed conclusively that native troops were 
no match for Europeans and made the English mas¬ 
ters of Bengal, with its rich delta, mighty rivers, and 
teeming population. 

Meanwhile, the outbreak of the Seven Years’ War 
in Europe renewed the contest between France and 
England on Indian soil. The English were com¬ 
pletely successful, for their control of the sea 
prevented the French government from sending 
reinforcements to India. France recovered her ter¬ 
ritorial possessions by the Peace of Paris in 1763, but 
agreed not to fortify them. This meant that she gave 
up her dream of an empire in India. England 


3 2 § Commerce and Colonies 

henceforth enjoyed a free hand in shaping the desti¬ 
nies of that vast region. 

Rivalry of France and England in North 

America (to 1763) 

Englishmen under the Tudors had done very 
little as colonizers of the New World. Henry VII, 
indeed, encouraged John Cabot to make the discover¬ 
ies of 1497-1498, on which the English claims to 
North America were based. During Elizabeth’s 
reign Sir Martin Frobisher explored the coasts of 
Greenland and Labrador, and another “sea-dog,” Sir 
Humphrey Gilbert, sought without success to colo¬ 
nize Newfoundland. Gilbert’s half-brother, Sir 
Walter Raleigh, planned a settlement in the region 
then called Virginia, but lack of support from home 
caused it to perish miserably. The truth was that 
sixteenth-century Englishmen had first to break the 
power of Spain in Europe before they could give 
much attention to America. The destruction of the 
Spanish Armada in 1388 at length enabled them to 
establish American colonies without interference 
from Spain. 

The first permanent settlements of Englishmen in 
America were made at Jamestown, Virginia (1607), 
and Plymouth (1620), during the reign of James L 
The reign of Charles I saw the foundation of Massa¬ 
chusetts and Maryland, and that of Charles II, the 
foundation of Pennsylvania and the Carolinas. By 
the end of the seventeenth century Massachusetts had 
absorbed Plymouth and had thrown out the offshoots 
which presently became Rhode Island, Connecticut, 
and New Hampshire. The Dutch colony of New 
Netherland soon passed into the hands of the English 


Rivalry of France and England 329 

and became'New York. Charles II granted it to his 
brother James, duke of York and Albany, who after¬ 
ward reigned as James II. James, in turn, be¬ 
stowed the region between the Hudson and Delaware 
rivers upon two court favorites, and it received the 
name of New Jersey. The small Swedish settlement 
on the Delaware, which had been established by the 
South Company of Sweden, under the auspices of 
Gustavus Adolphus, was annexed by the Dutch and 
then by the English. Delaware subsequently became 
a separate colony. Georgia, the southernmost of the 
Thirteen Colonies, was not settled until the reign of 
George II, in whose honor it was named. 

Both New England and the southern colonies were 
chiefly English in blood. Many emigrants also came 
from other parts of the British Isles. The emigrants 
from Continental Europe included French Hugue¬ 
nots and Germans from the Rhenish Palatinate. The 
population of the middle colonies was far more 
mixed. Besides English and a sprinkling of Scotch 
and Irish, it comprised Dutch in New York, Swedes 
in Delaware, and Germans in Pennsylvania. But 
neither France, Holland, Sweden, nor Germany con¬ 
tributed largely to the settlement of the Thirteen 
Colonies. 

The French at the opening of the seventeenth cen¬ 
tury had gained no foothold in the New World. For 
more than fifty years after the failure of Jacques Car¬ 
tier’s settlement near Quebec (1542), they were so 
occupied with the Huguenot wars that they gave 
little thought to colonial expansion. The single ex¬ 
ception was the ill-starred colony which Admiral de 
Coligny attempted to establish in Florida (1564). 
The Spaniards quickly destroyed it, not only because 


33 ° Commerce and Colonies 

the settlers were Protestants, but also because a 
French settlement in Florida directly threatened 
their West India possessions. The growing weakness 
of Spain, together with the cessation of the religious 
struggle, made possible a renewal of the colonizing 
movement. The French again turned to the north, 
attracted by the fur trade and the fisheries, and 
founded Canada during the same decade that the 
English were founding Virginia. 

The first great name in Canadian history is that 
of Samuel de Champlain, who enjoyed the patronage 
of Henry IV. Champlain explored the coast of 
Maine and Massachusetts, discovered the beautiful 
lake now called after him, traced the course of the 
St. Lawrence River, and also came upon lakes 
Ontario and Huron. He set up a permanent French 

post at Quebec in 1608, and three years later founded 
Montreal. 

During the reign of Louis XIV the exploration of 
Canada went on with renewed energy. The French, 
hitherto, had been spurred by the hope of finding in 
the Great Lakes a western passage to Cathay. Joliet, 
the fur trader, and Marquette, the Jesuit missionary, 
believed that they had actually found the highway 
uniting the Atlantic and the Pacific when their 
birchbark canoes first glided into the upper Missis¬ 
sippi. It was reserved for the most illustrious of 
French explorers, Robert de la Salle, to discover the 
true character of the “Father of Waters” and to per¬ 
form the feat of descending it to the sea. He took 
possession of all the territory drained by the Missis¬ 
sippi for Louis XIV, naming it Louisiana. 

Where La Salle had shown the way, missionaries, 
fur traders, hunters, and adventurers quickly fol- 


Rivalry of France and England 331 

lowed. The French now began to realize the impor¬ 
tance of the Mississippi Valley, which time was to 
prove the most extensive fertile area in the world. 
Efforts were made to occupy it and to connect it with 
Canada by a chain of forts reaching from Quebec 
and Montreal on the St. Lawrence to New Orleans at 
the mouth of the Mississippi. All of the continent 
west of the Alleghenies was to become New France. 

Flowever audacious this design, it seemed not 
impossible of fulfillment. New France, a single 
royal province under one military governor, offered 
a united front to the divided English colonies. The 
population, though small compared with the number 
of the English colonists, consisted mostly of men of 
military age, good fighters, and aided by numerous 
Indian allies. Lack of home support largely offset 
these real advantages. While the French were con¬ 
tending for colonial supremacy, they were constantly 
at war in Europe. They wasted on European battle¬ 
fields the resources which might otherwise have been 
expended in America. Furthermore, the despotism 
of Louis XIV and Louis XV hampered private enter¬ 
prise in New France by vexatious restrictions on trade 
and industry, and at the same time deprived the 
inhabitants of training in self-government. The 
French settlers never breathed the air of liberty, 
while the English colonists in political matters were 
left almost entirely to themselves. The failure of 
France to become a world-power at this time must 
be ascribed, therefore, chiefly to the unfortunate poli¬ 
cies of her rulers. 

The struggle between France and England began, 
both in the Old World and the New, in 1689, when 
the “Glorious Revolution” drove out James II and 


33 2 Commerce and Colonies 

placed William of Orange on the English throne as 
W illiam III. 1 he Dutch and English, who had 
previously been enemies, now became friends and 
united in resistance to Louis XIV. The French king 
not only threatened the Dutch, but also incensed the 
English by receiving the fugitive James and aiding 
him to win back his crown. England at once joined 
a coalition of the states of Europe against France. 
This was the beginning of a long series of wars 
between the two countries. The struggle extended 
beyond the Continent, for each of the rivals tried to 
destroy the commerce and annex the colonies of the 
other. 

The first period of conflict closed in 1713, with the 
Peace of Utrecht. England secured Newfoundland, 
Acadia (rechristened Nova Scotia), and the extensive 
region drained by the rivers flowing into Hudson 
Bay. France, however, kept the best part of her 
American territories and retained control of the St. 
Lawrence and the Mississippi. The possession of 
these two waterways gave her a strong strategic posi¬ 
tion in the interior of the continent. 

The two great European wars which came 
between 1740 and 1763 were naturally reflected in the 
New World. The War of the Austrian Succession, 
known in American history as King George’s 
War, proved to be indecisive. The Seven Years’ War, 
similarly known as the French and Indian War, 
resulted in the expulsion of the French from North 
America. France had no resources to cope with 
those of England in America, and the English com¬ 
mand of the sea proved decisive. One French post 
after another was captured. Wolfe defeated the gal¬ 
lant Montcalm under the walls of Quebec, and the 


Rivalry of France and England 333 


European and Colonial Wars, 1689-1783 


In Europe 

Dates 

Contestants 

Treaty 

In America 

War of the 
League of 
Augsburg 

1689-1697 

France vs. Great 
Britain, Hol¬ 
land, Spain, 
Austria, 

Sweden, etc. 

Ryswick 

King Wil¬ 
liam’s 

War 

War of the 
Spanish 
Succession 

1701-1713 

France, Spain, 
Bavaria vs. 

Great Britain, 
Holland, Aus¬ 
tria, Portugal, 
Savoy, Prussia, 
etc. 

Utrecht and 
Rastatt 

Queen 

Anne’s 

War 

War of the 
Austrian 
Succession 

1740-1748 

Prussia, France, 
Spain, Bavaria 
vs. Austria, 

Great Britain, 
Holland 

Aix-la- 

Chapelle 

King 

George’s 

War 

0744 - 

1748) 

Seven Years’ 
War 

1756-1763 

Prussia, Great 
Britain vs. 
Austria, France, 
Russia, Swe¬ 
den, Saxony 

Paris and 
Huber- 
tusburg 

French and 
Indian 

War 

( 1754 - 

1763) 

War of the 
American 
Revolution 

1776-1783 

Great Britain vs. 
L^nited States, 
France, Spain, 
Holland 

Paris and 
Versailles 



fall of that stronghold quickly followed. What 
remained of the French army at Montreal also sur¬ 
rendered. The British flag was now raised over Can¬ 
ada, where it has flown ever since. 

The second period of conflict closed in 1763, with 
the Peace of Paris. France ceded to England all her 
North American possessions east of the Mississippi, 
except two small islands kept for fishing purposes off 
the coast of Newfoundland. Spain, which had also 
been involved in the war, gave up Florida to Eng¬ 
land, receiving as compensation the French terri¬ 
tories west of the Mississippi. New France was now 










































334 Commerce and Colonies 

/ 

only a memory. But modern Canada has two mil¬ 
lions of Frenchmen, who still hold aloof from the 
British in language and religion, while Louisiana, 
though shrunk to the dimensions of an American 
state, still retains in its laws and in many customs of 
its people the French tradition. 

The Peace of Paris marked a turning-point in the 
history of the 1 hirteen Colonies. Relieved of pres¬ 
sure from without and free to expand toward the west 
and south, they now felt less keenly their dependence 
on England. Close ties, the ties of common interest, 
common ideals, and a common origin, still attached 
them to the mother country; but these were soon to be 
rudely severed during the period of disturbance, dis¬ 
order, and violence which culminated in the Ameri¬ 
can Revolution. 

The American Revolution, 1776-1783 

Englishmen in the New \Torld for a long time had 
been drawing apart from Englishmen in the Old 
World. The political training received by the 
colonists in their local meetings and provincial as¬ 
semblies fitted them for self-government, while the 
hard conditions of life in America fostered their 
energy, self-reliance, and impatience of restraint. 
The important part which they played in the con¬ 
quest of Canada gave them confidence in their mili¬ 
tary abilities and showed them the value of coopera¬ 
tion. Renewed interference of Great Britain in 
what they deemed their private concerns before long 
called forth their united resistance. 

Some of the grievances of which the colonists com¬ 
plained were the outcome of the British colonial 
policy. The home government discouraged the 


The American Revolution 


335 


manufacture in the colonies of goods that could be 
made in England. Parliament, for instance, pro¬ 
hibited the export of woolens, not only to the British 
Isles and the Continent, but also from one colony to 
another, and forbade the colonists to set up mills for 
making wrought iron or its finished products. Such 
regulations aimed to give British manufacturers a 
monopoly of the colonial markets. 

The home government also interfered with the 
commerce of the colonies. As early as 1660 Parlia¬ 
ment passed a “Navigation Act” providing that 
sugar, tobacco, cotton and indigo, might not be ex¬ 
ported direct from the colonies to foreign countries, 
but must be first brought to England, where duties 
were paid on them. A subsequent act required all 
imports into the colonies from Continental Europe to 
have been actually shipped from an English port, 
thus compelling the colonists to go to England for 
their supplies. These acts, however, were so poorly 
enforced for many years that smuggling became a 
lucrative occupation. 

All this legislation was not so repressive as one 
would suppose, partly because it was so constantly 
evaded and partly because Great Britain formed the 
natural market for most colonial products. More¬ 
over, the home government gave some special favors 
in the shape of “bounties,” or sums of money to en¬ 
courage the production of food and raw materials 
needed in Great Britain. Twenty-four colonial in¬ 
dustries were subsidized in this manner. Colonial 
shipping was also fostered, for ships built in the 
colonies enjoyed the same exclusive privileges in the 
carrying trade as British-built ships. In fact, the 
regulations which the American colonists had to en- 


336 


Commerce and Colonies 


dure were light, compared with the shackles laid by 
Spain and France upon their colonial possessions. It 
must always be remembered, finally, that Great Brit¬ 
ain defended the colonists in return for trade privi¬ 
leges. As long as her help was needed against the 
French, they did not protest seriously against the 
legislation of Parliament. 

After the close of the Seven Years' War George 
III and his ministers determined to keep British 
troops in America as a protection against outbreaks 
by the French or Indians. The colonists, to whose 
safety an army would add, were expected to pay for 
its partial support. Parliament, accordingly, took 
steps to enforce the laws regulating colonial com¬ 
merce and also passed the Stamp Act (1765). The 
protests of the colonists led to the repeal of this ob¬ 
noxious measure, but it was soon replaced by the 
Townshend Acts (1767), levying duties on certain 
commodities imported into America. These acts, in 
turn, were repealed three years later. Parliament, 
however, kept a small duty on tea, in order that the 
colonists might not think that it had abandoned its as¬ 
sumed right to tax them. 

The Stamp Act and the Townshend Acts thus 
brought up the whole question as to the extent of par¬ 
liamentary control over the colonists. They argued 
that taxes could be rightfully voted only by their own 
representative assemblies. It was a natural attitude 
for them to take, since Parliament, sitting three 
thousand miles away, had little insight into American 
affairs. The British view was that Parliament “vir¬ 
tually” represented all Englishmen and hence might 
tax them wherever they lived. This view can also 
be understood, for the “Glorious Revolution” had 


The American Revolution 


337 


definitely established the supremacy of Parliament in 
England. In any case, however, taxation of the col¬ 
onies was clearly contrary to custom and very im¬ 
politic in the face of the popular feeling which it 
aroused in America. 

Some British statesmen themselves espoused the 
cause of the colonists. Edmund Burke, the great 
Irish orator, declared that the idea of a virtual repre¬ 
sentation of America in Parliament was “the most 
contemptible idea that ever entered the head of a 
man.” Even William Pitt (then Earl of Chatham), 
while maintaining the right of Parliament to legislate 
for America, applauded the “manly wisdom and 
calm resolution” displayed by the colonists. But 
these were the voices of a minority, of a helpless mi¬ 
nority. Parliament was then utterly unrepresentative 
of the people and was packed with the supporters of 
George III (the “king’s friends”). To this would- 
be despot, therefore, belongs the chief responsibility 
for the measures of oppression which provoked the 
resistance of the Thirteen Colonies. 

The colonists were so opposed to the principle of 
parliamentary taxation that they refused to buy tea 
from British merchants and in Boston even boarded a 
tea ship and threw the cargo into the water. Parlia¬ 
ment replied to the “Boston Tea Party” by closing 
the harbor of that city to commerce and by depriving 
Massachusetts of self-government. These measures, 
instead of bringing the recalcitrant colony to terms, 
only aroused the apprehension of her neighbors and 
led to the meeting of delegates from all the colonies, 
except Georgia, in the First Continental Congress. 
It recommended a policy of non-intercourse with 
Great Britain until the colonists had recovered their 


33 ^ 


Commerce and Colonies 


“just rights and liberties.” The Second Congress, 
which met after blood had been shed at Lexington 
and Concord, prepared for war and appointed 
George Washington to command the colonial forces. 
On July 4, 1776, after the failure of all plans for con¬ 
ciliation with the mother country, it declared that 
“these united colonies are, and of right ought to be, 
free and independent states.” 

No colony at first contained a large majority in 
favor of separation, and even after the Declaration of 
Independence numerous loyalists, or “Tories,” con¬ 
tinued to espouse the British cause. After the con¬ 
clusion of peace the “Tories” emigrated in great 
numbers to Canada, where they were the first English 
settlers. They prospered in their new home, and 
their descendants, who form a considerable part of 
the Canadian population, are to-day among the most 
devoted members of the British Empire. 

Even had the colonists been unanimous in resist¬ 
ance to Great Britain, they stood little chance of win¬ 
ning against a wealthy country with a population 
nearly three times their own, trained armies sup¬ 
ported by German mercenaries, and a powerful navy. 
When, however, the resources of France were thrown 
into the scale, the issue became less doubtful. France, 
still smarting from the losses incurred in the Seven 
Years’ War, desired to recover as much as possible 
of her colonial dominion and secretly aided the 
Americans with money and supplies for some time 
before the victory at Saratoga led her to enter into a 
formal alliance with them. 

The war now merged into a European conflict, in 
which France was joined by Spain and Holland. 
Great Britain needed all her reserve power to prevent 



WASHINGTON 

After the painting by Gilbert Stuart. 
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. 


■H 












The American Revolution 339 

rebellion in. I reland, defend Gibraltar, and keep her 
possessions in the West Indies and India. The strug¬ 
gle in America practically closed in 1781, when 



North America after the Peace of Paris, 1783 a. d. 


Cornwallis, blockaded at Yorktown by a French fleet 
and closely invested by the combined French and 
American armies, surrendered the largest British 







































































34° Commerce and Colonies 

force still in the colonies. Nearly two years passed, 
however, before the contestants made peace. 

The Treaty of Paris between Great Britain and 
the United States recognized the independence of the 
former Thirteen Colonies and fixed their boundaries 
at Canada and the Great Lakes, the Atlantic Ocean, 
Florida, and the Mississippi River. The Treaty of 
Versailles between Great Britain, France, and Spain 
restored to France a few colonial possessions and gave 
to Spain the island of Minorca and the Florida ter¬ 
ritory. Holland, which concluded a separate peace 
with Great Britain, was obliged to cede to that 
country some stations in India and to throw open to 
British merchants the valuable trade of the East 
Indies. 

The successful revolt of the Thirteen Colonies 
dealt a staggering blow at the old colonial policy. 
The Americans continued to trade with the mother 
country from self-interest, although they were no 
longer compelled to do so by law.- The result was 
that British commerce with the United States 
doubled within fifteen years after the close of the 
Revolutionary War. This formed an object-lesson 
in the futility of commercial restrictions. 

The American War of Independence reacted al¬ 
most at once on Europe. The Declaration of Inde¬ 
pendence, setting forth the “unalienable rights of 
man” as against feudal privilege and oppression, pro¬ 
vided ardent spirits in France with a formula of 
liberty which they were not slow in applying to their 
own country. The French Revolution of 1789 was 
the child of the American Revolution. Early in the 
nineteenth century still another revolutionary move¬ 
ment stripped Spain and Portugal of all their con- 


Formation of the United States 


34i 


tinental possessions in the New World. America 
was, indeed, teaching by example. 

Formation of the United States 

The Continental Congress, which had framed the 
Declaration of Independence in 1776, continued to 
govern the United States until the adoption of the 
Articles of Confederation in 1781. The Articles 
established a mere league of states, like the Dutch and 
Swiss confederations. The authority of Congress 
was practically limited to war, peace, and foreign 
affairs. It could not levy taxes, could not regulate 
interstate commerce, and had no power to enforce 
obedience in either a state or an individual. Every 
attempt to amend the Articles by legislative action 
failed, and the weak and clumsy government which 
they had set up threatened to collapse. 

Such were the distressing circumstances under 
which the Federal Convention met at Philadelphia 
in May, 1787. To this body the states sent fifty-five 
delegates, including Washington, who presided, 
Franklin, James Madison, and Alexander Hamilton. 
Instead of merely amending the Articles, they de¬ 
cided to prepare an entirely new constitution. The 
task was accomplished within four months. 

Necessary though the Constitution was, if the 
American people were not to face anarchy and civil 
war, it satisfied neither the advocates of states’ rights 
nor the extreme democrats. Nearly a year elapsed 
before eleven states ratified the instrument. North 
Carolina and Rhode Island did not ratify it until 
after the inauguration of Washington as President in 
1789. 

The concessions made to the opponents of the Con- 


34 2 Commerce and Colonies 

stitution, as originally framed, were embodied in the 
first ten amendments. These provided for religious 
freedom, the separation of Church and State, free 
speech, a free press, the privileges of assembly and 
petition, the right to bear arms, speedy and public 
jury trials, and other safeguards of personal liberty. 
In short, the amendments were a Bill of Rights for 
the American people. 

The Constitution, in many features, reflects the 
political experience of the colonists and their famili¬ 
arity with British methods of government. Accus¬ 
tomed to a bicameral legislature, they retained this 
arrangement in the Senate and House of Representa¬ 
tives, but made the upper, as well as the lower, house 
elective. The President’s powers of military com¬ 
mand, appointment, and veto resembled those of the 
colonial governor, though here, again, the framers of 
the Constitution departed from precedent in making 
the executive elective. The national courts were 
modeled aftei those ol the colonies, he Supreme 
Court, with its power of declaring acts of Congress 
unconstitutional, found a prototype in the Privy 
Council of Great Britain, which had formerly exer¬ 
cised the right of annulling acts of the colonial legis¬ 
latures. It is noteworthy, however, that the Consti¬ 
tution contains no provision for the cabinet system, 
by which both executive and legislative functions are 
centered in the popular branch of the legislature. 
The cabinet system was quite unknown to the colo¬ 
nists and at this time was not fully developed in 
Great Britain. 

As a whole, the Constitution formed a novelty in 
politics. It established, for the first time in history, 
a federal union, rather than a mere league of states or 


Progress of Geographical Discovery 343 

confederation. 1 he objects of the new government 
were concisely stated in the immortal preamble: 
U We, the people of the United States, in order to 
form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure 
domestic tranquillity, provide for the common de¬ 
fense, promote the general welfare, and secure the 
blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do 
ordain and establish this constitution for the United 
States of America.” 

Progress of Geographical Discovery 

Great Britain soon found at least partial compen¬ 
sation for the loss of the Thirteen Colonies in the oc¬ 
cupation of Australia and the islands of the Pacific. 
That vast ocean, covering more than one-third of the 
globe, remained little known to Europeans until the 
latter part of the eighteenth century. Soon after 
Magellan’s voyage the Spaniards established a regu¬ 
lar commercial route between Mexico and the Phil¬ 
ippines and gradually discovered some of the archi¬ 
pelagoes which stud the intervening seas. Sir Francis 
Drake’s circumnavigation of the world first drew the 
attention of Englishmen to the Pacific Ocean, but a 
long time passed before they began its systematic 
exploration. 

The unveiling of the Pacific was closely connected 
with the Antarctic problem. Geographers from the 
time of the Greeks had a vague idea that a region of 
continental proportions lay to the southeast of the 
Indian Ocean. The idea found expression in 
Ptolemy’s map of the world, and Marco Polo during 
his stay in China heard about it. After the Dutch 
became established in the East Indies, they made 
renewed search for the “Great South Land” and 


344 


Commerce and Colonies 


carefully explored the western coast of Australia, or 
“New Holland.” 

In .1642 the Dutch East India Company sent Abel 
Tasman from Batavia to investigate the real extent 
of Australia. Tasman’s two voyages—among the 
most notable on record—led to the discovery of Van 
Diemen’s Land (Tasmania) and New Zealand, and 
proved conclusively that Australia had no connection 
with the supposed Antarctic continent. The Dutch, 
however, manifested little interest in the regions 
which they had found, and more than one hundred 
years elapsed before Tasman’s work was continued by 
Captain James Cook. 

This famous navigator, the son of a farm laborer, 
entered the British navy at an early age and by his 
unaided efforts rose to high command. Cook’s first 
voyage in the Pacific resulted in the exploration of 
the coast of New Zealand and the eastern shore of 
Australia. The second voyage finally settled the 
question as to the existence of a southern continent, 
for Cook sailed three times across the Pacific Ocean 
without finding it. At the instance of George III, 
Cook undertook a third voyage to locate, if possible, 
an opening on the coast of Alaska which would lead 
into Hudson Bay. He followed the American coast 
through Bering Strait until an unbroken ice field 
barred further progress. On the return from the 
Arctic region Cook visited the Hawaiian Islands, 
where he was murdered by the natives. Thus closed 
the career of one who, more than any other explorer, 

revealed to European gaze the island world of the 
Pacific. 

Captain Cook on his third voyage was the first 
British navigator to sight Alaska. Here, however, 













































































































































































































Progress of Geographical Discovery 345 

he had been preceded by the Russians, who reached 
the Pacific by way of Siberia and the Arctic Ocean. 
It still remained uncertain whether Siberia did not 
join onto the northern part of the New World. Peter 
the Great, who showed a keen interest in geograph¬ 
ical discovery, commissioned Vitus Bering, a Dane 
in the Russian service, to solve the problem. Bering 
explored the strait and sea named after him and made 
clear the relation between North America and Asia. 

The eighteenth century thus added greatly to man’s 
knowledge of the world, especially in the Pacific 
area. Cook’s voyages, in particular, left the main 
outlines of the southern part of the globe substantially 
as they are known to-day. From this time systematic 
exploration for scientific purposes more and more 
took the place of voyages by private adventurers for 
the sake of warfare or plunder. Geographical dis¬ 
covery must be included, therefore, among the 
influences which made the eighteenth century so con¬ 
spicuously an age of enlightenment. 


CHAPTER X 

THE OLD REGIME 

Reform 

The student will recall the more significant trans¬ 
formations of European society which closed the 
Middle Ages and ushered in modern times. The 
Renaissance of literature, art, and learning; geo¬ 
graphical discovery, exploration and colonization; 
and the Protestant Reformation and Catholic 
Counter Reformation all helped to complete the 
transition from the medieval to the modern world. 
To these three movements we may now add the ex¬ 
traordinary awakening of the European mind in the 
seventeenth century and especially in the eighteenth 
century. It was an age of reason, an age of enlight¬ 
enment. 

The thinkers of this period pursued knowledge not 
so much for its own sake as for its social usefulness. 
They felt that the time had come when mankind 
might well discard many ideas and customs, once 
serviceable, perhaps, but now outworn. To them 
the chief obstacle in the way of progress was found 
in human ignorance, prejudice, and unreasoning ven¬ 
eration for the past. Systematic and accurate 
knowledge, they believed, would destroy this attach¬ 
ment to “the good old days” and would make it pos¬ 
sible to create more reasonable and enlightened in¬ 
stitutions. In other words, thinkers were animated 
by the reforming spirit. 


346 


The Privileged Classes 347 

Reform was sorely needed. Absolute monarchies 
claiming to rule by divine right, aristocracies in the 
possession of privileges and honors, the masses of the 
people excluded from any part in the government 
and burdened with taxes and feudal dues—such were 
some of the survivals of medievalism which formed 
the Old Regime. The eighteenth century abolished 
it in France: the nineteenth and twentieth centuries 
have done much to abolish it in other European 
countries. Let us examine it more closely. 

The Privileged Classes 

Where absolutism prevailed, everything depended 
upon the personal character of the sovereign. A 
Peter the Great might set his country upon the road 
to civilization; a Louis XIV, on the contrary, might 
plunge his people into indescribable misery as the 
result of needless wars and extravagant expenditures. 
As time went on, it began to appear more and more 
unreasonable that a single person should have the 
power to make the laws, levy the taxes, spend the 
revenues, declare war, and conclude peace according 
to his own inclination. England in the seventeenth 
century had shown that a divine-right monarchy 
might be replaced by a constitutional monarchy and 
parliamentary control of legislation. The reformers 
wished to secure for France and other Continental 
countries at least an equal measure of political 
liberty. 

Not less insistent was their demand for social 
equality. The feudal system had bequeathed as part 
of its heritage to modern Europe a system of class 
distinctions which honeycombed society. The high¬ 
est place was occupied by the clergy and nobility, 



34 8 


The Old Regime 


who constituted the First and Second Estates, re¬ 
spectively. These two privileged classes formed a 
very small minority of the population in any Euro¬ 
pean country. Of twenty-five million Frenchmen, 
for instance, less than half a million were clerics or 
nobles. 

Reverence felt by kings and lords for mother 
Church had dowered her representatives with rich 
and broad domains. In France, Spain, Italy, and 
those parts of Germany where Church property had 
not been confiscated by Protestants, the archbishops, 
bishops, abbots, and cardinals ruled as veritable 
princes and paid few or no taxes to the government. 
These members of the higher clergy were recruited 
mainly from the noble families and naturally took 
the side of the absolute monarchs. The lower clergy, 
the thousands of parish priests, who came from the 
common people, just as naturally espoused the popu¬ 
lar cause. They saw the abuses of the existing system 
and supported the demands for its reform. 

By the eighteenth century the old feudal nobility 
had largely disappeared from Europe, except in 
Germany. A new aristocracy arose, consisting of 
those who had been ennobled by the king for various 
services or who had held certain offices which con- 
feiied noble rank. The nobles, like the higher 
cJergy, were great landed proprietors, though with¬ 
out the military obligations which rested on feudal 
lords during the Middle Ages. 

Great Britain is almost the only modern state 
where the nobility still keeps an important place in 
the national life. There are several reasons for this 
fact.. In the first place, British nobles are not numer¬ 
ous, in consequence of the rule of primogeniture. 


349 


The Privileged Classes 

Only the eldest son of a peer inherits his father’s title 
and estate; the younger sons are commoners. Even 
the eldest son during his father’s lifetime is styled 

Lord” simply by courtesy. In the second place, the 
social distinction of the nobility arouses little antago¬ 
nism, because a peer is not bound to marry into an¬ 
other noble family but may take his wife from the 
ranks of commoners. In the third place, the nobility 
is from time to time enlarged through the creation of 
new peers, very often men who have distinguished 
themselves by their public services as generals or 
statesmen or by their contributions to science, art, or 
letters. This constant supply of new blood has 
helped to preserve the British aristocracy from stag¬ 
nation and incompetence. Finally, nobles in Great 
Britain are taxed as are other citizens and are equally 
amenable to the laws. 

Very different was the situation in eighteenth- 
century France. Here there were as many as one 
hundred thousand nobles, for the French did not 
observe the rule of primogeniture. Their “gentle 
birth” enabled them to monopolize the important 
offices in the government, the army, and the Church. 
They claimed, and largely secured, exemption from 
taxation. The result was that the most of the expense 
of the wars, the magnificent palaces, and gorgeous 
ceremonial of Louis XIV and Louis XV was borne 
by the middle and lower classes of France. The 
provincial nobles, who lived on their country estates, 
usually took more or less part in local affairs and felt 
an interest in the welfare of the peasantry. But many 
members of the nobility were absentee landlords, 
leading a fashionable existence at the court and 
dancing attendance on the king. Nobles of this type 


350 


The Old Regime 


were ornamental rather than useful. Their luxury 
and idleness made them objects of odium in the 
minds of all who wished to renovate society. As 
one reformer declared, “Through all the vocabulary 
of Adam, there is not such an animal as a duke or a 
count.” 


The Unprivileged Classes 

Such were the two privileged orders, or estates. 
Beneath them came the unprivileged order known as 
the Third Estate in France. It consisted of three 
main divisions. 

The middle class, or bourgeoisie, included all 
those who were not manual laborers. Professional 
men, such as magistrates, lawyers, physicians, and 
teachers, together with bankers, manufacturers, 
wholesale merchants, and shopkeepers, were bour¬ 
geois. The British middle class enjoyed representa¬ 
tion in Parliament and frequently entered the nobil¬ 
ity. The French bourgeoisie, on the contrary, could 
not hold the positions of greatest honor in the govern¬ 
ment. Though well educated and often wealthy, 
they were made to feel in every way their inferiority 
to the arrogant nobles. They added their voices, 
therefore, to those who demanded political liberty 
and social equality. 

The next division of the Third Estate comprised 
the artisans living in the towns and cities. They were 
not very numerous, except in Great Britain, France, 
western Germany, and northern Italy, where industry 
had reached a much higher development than else¬ 
where in Europe. 

The craft guilds, so characteristic of urban life 
during the Middle Ages, had begun to disappear 


The Unprivileged Classes 351 

from eighteenth-century England, but still main¬ 
tained their importance on the Continent. Each 
trade had its own guild, controlling methods of man¬ 
ufacture, quantity and quality of the article produced, 
wages and hours of labor, and number of workmen 
to be employed. In many places the masters, who 
owned the shops, machines, or tools, alone belonged 
to the guilds. Even where journeymen and appren¬ 
tices became members after paying excessive en¬ 
trance fees, they were not admitted to all the privi¬ 
leges of the craft. This exclusive policy of the 
masters provoked much opposition on the part of the 
poorer workmen, or urban proletariat, and led to a 
demand for the abolition of industrial monopoly. 

The last and by far the largest division of the 
Third Estate was that of the peasants. In Prussia, 
Austria, Hungary, Poland, Russia, and Spain they 
were still serfs. They might not leave their villages 
or marry without their lord’s consent; their children 
must serve in his family for several years at a nominal 
wage; and they themselves had to work for a number 
of days each week on their lord’s land. It is said that 
this forced labor sometimes took so much of the 
peasant’s time that he could only cultivate his own 
holding by moonlight. Conditions were better in 
Italy and western Germany, though it was a Hessian 
prince who sold his subjects to Great Britain to fight 
as mercenaries in the American War of Indepen¬ 
dence. In France, serfdom still existed only in 
Alsace, Lorraine, and Franche-Comte, three prov¬ 
inces which had been acquired by Louis XIV and 
Louis XV. The great majority of the French peas¬ 
ants enjoyed complete freedom, and many of them 
owned their own farms. 


352 


The Old Regime 


But even the free peasants of France carried a 
heavy burden. The king imposed the hated land tax 
(faille), assessing a certain amount on each village 
and requiring the money to be paid whether the in¬ 
habitants could afford it or not. Still more hated 
was the corvee, or forced labor exacted by the govern¬ 
ment from time to time on roads and other public 
works. The clergy demanded tithes, which amount¬ 
ed to perhaps a thirteenth of the produce. The 
nobles levied various feudal dues for the use of oven, 
mill, and winepress, and tolls for the use of roads 
and bridges. The game laws were especially vexa¬ 
tious, because farmers were obliged to allow the 
game of neighboring lords to invade their fields and 
destroy the crops. Slight wonder that the peasants 
also formed a discontented class, anxious for any 
reforms which would better their hard lot. 

The Church 

Practically all European peoples in the eighteenth 
century called themselves Christians. The majority 
of them were Catholics. The eastern and western 
branches of Catholic Christianity began to draw 
apart during the earlier Middle Ages and finally 
separated in the eleventh century. This schism was 
never afterwards healed. The Eastern or Greek 
Church found its adherents principally among the in¬ 
habitants of the Balkan Peninsula and the Russians. 

The Western or Roman Church held undisputed 
sway throughout the rest of Europe before the Protes¬ 
tant Reformation in the sixteenth century. Even 
after this religious upheaval, it continued to be the 
state church in Italy, Spain, Portugal, France, Aus¬ 
tria proper, the Austrian Netherlands, Bavaria, 


The Church 


353 


Poland, and several of the Swiss cantons. Moreover, 
there were numerous Roman Catholics in Bohemia! 
Hungary, and Ireland. ’ 

The Reformation made Lutheranism the state 
church in Prussia, Saxony, and the three Scandina¬ 
vian countries. Anglicanism in England, Wales, and 
Ireland, and Presbyterianism in Scotland and Hol¬ 
land held a similarly privileged position. There 

were also many Protestants in France, Switzerland, 
and southern Germany. 

The divisions among Protestants gave rise to new 
sects. The Unitarians, who rejected the doctrine of 
Trinity, gained followers in Poland and Hungary 
as early as the sixteenth century and subsequently in 
the British Isles and the United States. Seventeenth- 
century England produced the Baptists, whose name 
was derived from their insistence on immersion of 
adults as the only proper form of baptism. The So¬ 
ciety of Friends, or Quakers, as they are commonly 
called, also arose in England at this time. Their 
founder was George Fox, a weaver’s son. The 
Quakers rejected all religious ceremonial, had no 
paid ministers, and did not observe the two sacra¬ 
ments of baptism and the Lord’s Supper. War and 

negro slavery were condemned as unchristian by the 
Quakers. 

Methodism took its start in the eighteenth century, 
out of the preaching of John Wesley and his associ¬ 
ates. They worked among the common people of 
England and won a large following by the fervor, 
piety, and strictness of their ways. The Methodists 
finally separated from the Anglican Church and be¬ 
came an independent denomination. 

The union of Church and State in both Catholic 


354 


The Old Regime 


and Protestant countries seemed to make conformity 
to the established religion essential for all citizens. 
Non-conformity was considered a crime, which the 
government stood ready to punish by fines, imprison¬ 
ment, and even death. Heretics were burnt at the 
stake in eighteenth-century Spain. In France, after 
Louis XIV revoked the Edict of Nantes (1685), 
Huguenots who held religious services were sent to 
the galleys. The Toleration Act (1689) in England, 
while allowing the Dissenters to worship publicly in 
their own way, did not extend this privilege to Ro¬ 
man Catholics, L T nitarians, and Jews. Even where 
active persecution of nonconformists had ceased, the 
strict press censorship in most countries interfered 
with the free expression of thought on religious sub¬ 
jects. Only Holland, Switzerland, and Great 
Britain did not require an official license for the pub¬ 
lication of books, pamphlets, and newspapers. 

The clergy in Catholic lands kept much of the 
authority which they had exercised throughout the 
Middle Ages. Cases involving heresy or blasphemy 
were tried in their own courts. They alone registered 
births and deaths and solemnized legal marriages. 
Hospitals and charitable institutions remained under 
their direction. Clergymen taught and generally 
controlled the elementary and higher schools. One 
result of the Reformation was the introduction into 
some of the German states, Holland, Scotland, and 
the Puritan colonies of New England of schools sup¬ 
ported by general taxation, so that every one might 
be able to read and interpret the Scriptures. But 
with such exceptions the public school system was 
almost unknown in Europe. The common people 
were usuallv uneducated. 


355 


Liberal Ideas of Industry and Commerce 

Liberal Ideas of Industry and Commerce; the 

Economists 

The abuses of the Old Regime were not greater in 
the eighteenth century than for hundreds of years be¬ 
fore, but now they were to be seriously attacked by 
thinkers who applied the test of reasonableness to 
every institution. It was at this time that political 
economy, or economics, came into being. Economic 
science, which investigates such subjects as the pro¬ 
duction of wealth and its distribution as rent, interest, 
profits, and wages, the functions of money and credit, 
and the methods of taxation, had been studied in 
earlier times by those whose chief motive was to in¬ 
crease the riches of merchants and fill the treasuries 
of kings. Students now took a wider view and began 
to search for the true causes of national well-being:. 

1 he economists who flourished in France received 
the name of physiocrats, because they believed that 
natural laws ruled in the economic world. In op¬ 
position to the mercantilists, who held that the 
wealth of a nation comes from industry and com¬ 
merce, some of the physiocrats declared that it comes 
from agriculture. Manufacturers, said they, merely 
give a new form to materials extracted from the 
earth, while traders do nothing more than transfer 
commodities from one person to another. Farmers 
are the only productive members of society. It was 
a striking doctrine to enunciate at a time when the 
peasantry formed, as has been said, the “beast of 
burden” of the Old Regime. This group of physio¬ 
crats did a real service in insisting upon the impor¬ 
tance of agriculture, even though they erred in assum¬ 
ing that it is the sole source of wealth. 


35 6 


The Old Regime 


Another group of physiocrats protested against the 
burdensome restraints imposed upon industry by the 
guilds and upon commerce by the governments. 
They advocated economic freedom. Any one should 
be allowed to make what things he likes; all occupa¬ 
tions should be open to everybody; trade between 
different parts of the country should not be impeded 
by tolls and taxes; customs duties should not be 
levied on foreign goods. The physiocratic teach¬ 
ing was summed up in the famous phrase laissez- 
faire —“let alone.” 

A Scotch professor of philosophy, Adam Smith, 
who had visited France and knew the physiocrats, 
carried their ideas across the Channel. His famous 
work on the Wealth of Nations appeared in 1776 , the 
year of American independence. It formed a new 
declaration of independence for industry and com¬ 
merce. Smith set forth the doctrine of laissez-faire 
so clearly and persuasively as to make a profound im¬ 
pression upon business men and statesmen. His 
arguments against monopolies, bounties, and protec¬ 
tive tariffs did much to secure the subsequent adop¬ 
tion of free trade by Great Britain and even affected 
Continental legislation. Thus the Wealth of Na¬ 
tions, judged by its results, must be accounted one of 
the most important books ever written. 

The Scientists 

Arithmetic, geometry, and algebra (elementary 
mathematics) had been studied in the schools and 
universities of the Middle Ages. It remained to 
create the higher mathematics, including analytic 
geometry, logarithms, the theory of probabilities, 
and the infinitesimal calculus. Knowledge of the cal- 


The Scientists 


357 


cuius, which deals with quantities infinitely small, has 
been of immense service in engineering and other ap¬ 
plied sciences. Credit for its discovery is divided be¬ 
tween the German Leibniz (1646-1716) and his Eng¬ 
lish contemporary Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727). 

The profound mind of Newton formulated the so- 
called law of gravitation. He showed by mathemat¬ 
ical calculation that the motion of the planets about 
the sun, and of the moon about the earth, can be ex¬ 
plained as due to the same mysterious force of 
gravity which makes the apple fall to the ground. 
This discovery that all the movements of the 
heavenly bodies obey one simple physical law forms 
perhaps the greatest achievement in the history of 
science. Scarcely less important was the nebular 
hypothesis of the French astronomer Laplace (1749- 
I§2 7). He conjectured that our own and other solar 
systems had been produced by the condensation of 
nebulous matter once diffused through space; in 
other words, that the nebula? were stages in the for¬ 
mation of stars. The further achievements of eight¬ 
eenth-century astronomy include the discovery be¬ 
yond Saturn of a new planet, Uranus, the computa¬ 
tion of the distance between the earth and the moon, 
and the proof that our solar system as a whole is mov¬ 
ing toward a point in the constellation Hercules. 

Various investigators at this time laid the founda¬ 
tion of modern physics, particularly in the depart¬ 
ments of electricity and magnetism. Benjamin 
Franklin, by his kite experiment, demonstrated that 
lightning is really an electrical phenomenon. The 
memory of the Italian Volta is perpetuated when¬ 
ever an electrician refers to a “voltaic cell” or uses 
the term “volt.” Two Frenchmen, the Montgolfier 


3S§ 


The Old Regime 


Brothers, invented the balloon, thus beginning the 
conquest of the air. The first successful ascents in 
balloons took place at Paris in 1783. 

Chemical research made rapid progress. Greek 
philosophers had taught that earth, air, water, and 
fire comprise the original “elements” out of which 
everything else was made. The chemists now dis¬ 
proved this idea by decomposing water into the two 
gases, hydrogen and oxygen. The Frenchman 
Lavoisier (1743-1794) also showed that fire is really 
a union of oxygen with earthy carbon. Until his 
time it had been supposed that objects burn because 
they contain a combustible substance known as 
“phlogiston.” We further owe to Lavoisier the 
modern doctrine of the indestructibility of matter. 

Eighteenth-century explorers brought back to 
Europe from America and the Pacific many new 
species of animals and plants, thus greatly encourag¬ 
ing biological study. Here the most eminent name 
is that of the Swede Linnaeus (1707-1778), whose 
classification of plants established botany as a science. 

Scientific investigations, in previous times pursued 
by lonely thinkers, now began to be carried on syste¬ 
matically by the members of learned societies. Italy 
led the way with the foundation at Naples and Rome 
of the first academies of science, and her example 
was followed at Paris, Berlin, and other European 
capitals. Shortly after the “Glorious Revolution” a 
group of English investigators obtained a charter 
forming them into the Royal Society of London. It 
still exists and enrolls the most distinguished scien¬ 
tists of Great Britain. Never before had there been 
so much interest in science and so many opportunities 
to uncover the secrets of nature. 


Liberal Ideas of Religion and Politics 359 

Liberal Ideas of Religion and Politics; the 
English Philosophers 

The advance of science, which immensely broad¬ 
ened men’s conceptions of the universe, could not fail 
to affect their attitude toward religion. The idea of 
the reign of natural law in the physical world was 
now extended to the spiritual world. Thinking men 
began to argue that the doctrines of Christianity 
should not be accepted on the authority either of the 
Church or of the Bible, but must be submitted to free 
inquiry. These champions of reason—the rational- 
* s *- s especially flourished in Great Britain, where 
thought was less fettered than on the Continent. 

Some of the rationalists, including John Locke, 
defended Christianity as being the most reasonable 
of all religions. Nevertheless, in his famous Letters 
on Tolerance, Locke made a plea for individual 
liberty of conscience. To persecute unbelievers, he 
argued, only transformed them into hypocrites. Re¬ 
ligious belief is a state of mind, and the mind can¬ 
not be compelled to believe. If infidels were to be 
converted by force, it would be easier for God to do 
it with armies of heavenly legions than for any son 

of the Church, how potent soever, with all his 
dragoons.” 

Other rationalists went beyond Locke and ques¬ 
tioned the special claims of Christianity. They de¬ 
clared that the questions over which Christian sects 
had disputed for centuries were really of minor 
importance; the essential thing was the doctrine 
common to all mankind. Thus they arrived at the 
conception of ^natural religion,” which included 
simply the belief in a personal God and in man’s 


360 The Old Regime 

immortal soul. These thinkers received the name 
of Deists. 

By casting doubt on the efficacy of particular re¬ 
ligions, the Deists gave an impetus to the demand for 
toleration of all. Their speculations found a warm 
welcome in France, where they helped to undermine 
reverence for the Church among the more intelligent 
classes. Deism in this way acted as a revolutionary 
. ferment. 

Rationalism also invaded politics. British think¬ 
ers, of whom Locke in his Two Treatises on Govern¬ 
ment was again the most prominent representative, 
developed a theory of politics utterly opposed to the 
old doctrine of the divine right of kings. Accord¬ 
ing to Locke, all men possess certain natural rights 
to life, liberty, and the ownership of property. To 
preserve these rights they have entered into a con¬ 
tract with one another, agreeing that the majority 
shall have power to make and execute all necessary 
laws. If the government, thus created, breaks the 
contract by violating man’s natural rights, it has no 
longer any claim to the allegiance of its subjects and 
may be legitimately overthrown. 

To say that all government exists, or should exist, 
by the consent of the governed is to set up the doc¬ 
trine of popular sovereignty. How influential it 
was may be seen from passages in the Declaration of 
Independence which reproduce the very words of 
Locke and other British writers. But their ideas 
found the heartiest reception in France. Enlight¬ 
ened members of the nobility and bourgeoisie, weary 
of royal despotism and feudal privilege, took them 
up, expounded them, and spread them among the 
people. 


The French Philosophers 361 
The French Philosophers 

France during the eighteenth century had not been 
able to maintain the high position among European 
states to which she had been raised by Louis XIV, 
and in the struggle for colonial empire she had been 
defeated by Great Britain. Her intellectual leader¬ 
ship compensated for all that she had lost. Through¬ 
out this century France gave birth to a succession of 
philosophers, whose ideas fell like fertilizing rain 
upon the arid soil of the Old Regime. Some of 
them had lived for a time in Great Britain as refu¬ 
gees from the persecution which too bold thinking 
involved at home. Their life there made them 
acquainted with the British system of constitutional 
monarchy—so unlike the absolutism of French kings 
with the political theories of Locke, and with the 
ideas of the Deists, from whom they learned to sub¬ 
mit time-honored beliefs to searching examination. 

A nobleman, lawyer, and judge, Montesquieu, 
spent twenty years in composing a single book on the 
Spirit of Laws . It is a classic in political science. 
There was nothing revolutionary in Montesquieu’s 
conclusions. He examined each form of govern¬ 
ment in order to determine its excellencies and de¬ 
fects. The British constitution seemed to him most 
admirable, as combining the virtues of monarchy, 
aristocracy, and democracy. Montesquieu especially 
insisted upon the necessity of separating the exec¬ 
utive, legislative, and judicial functions of govern¬ 
ment, instead of combining them in the person of a 
single ruler. This idea influenced the French revo¬ 
lutionists and also had great weight with the framers 
of the Constitution of the United States. 


362 The Old Regime 

The foremost figure among the philosophers was 
Voltaire, who sprang from the bourgeoisie . He was 
not a deep thinker like Montesquieu, but was 
rather a brilliant and somewhat superficial man of 
letters. For more than half a century he poured 
forth a succession of poems, dramas, essays, biog- 
graphies, histories, and other works, so clearly writ¬ 
ten, so witty, and so satirical as to win the applause 
of his contemporaries. 

Voltaire devoted a long life to the preaching of 
enlightenment. He was in no sense a revolutionist, 
and favored reform by royal decree as being the 
simplest and most expeditious method. He made it 
his particular work to bring discredit on ecclesias¬ 
tical authority. The Church he regarded as an in¬ 
vention of self-seeking priests. A typical Deist, 
Voltaire insisted on the need of toleration. “Since 
we are all steeped in error and folly,” he said, “we 
must forgive each other our follies.” His exposure 
of bigotry and fanaticsm was needed in the eight¬ 
eenth century. It has helped to create the freer at¬ 
mosphere in which religious thought moves to-day. 

If Voltaire was the destroyer of the old, Rousseau 
was the prophet of the new. This son of a Geneva 
watchmaker, who wandered from one European 
capital to another, made a failure of everything he 
undertook and died poverty-stricken and demented. 
The discouragements and miseries of his career 
found expression in what he wrote. Rousseau felt 
only contempt for the boasted civilization of the age. 
He loved to picture what he supposed was once the 
“state of nature,” before governments had arisen, be¬ 
fore the strong had begun to oppress the weak, when 
nobody owned the land, and when there were no 














The French Philosophers 363 

taxes and no wars. “Back to nature” was Rousseau’s 
cry. 

Such fancies Rousseau applied to politics in what 
was his most important book, the Social Contract. 
Starting with the assertion that “man was born free 
and everywhere he is in chains,” he went on to de¬ 
scribe a purely ideal state of society in which the citi¬ 
zens are ruled neither by kings nor parliaments, but 
themselves make the laws directly. The only way to 
reform the world, according to Rousseau, was to re¬ 
store the sovereignty of the people, with “Liberty, 
Equality, Fraternity,” for all. As we have just 
learned, the idea that governments and laws arise by 
voluntary agreements among men, who may over¬ 
throw them when necessary, was not new; but Rous¬ 
seau first gave it wide currency. Frenchmen of 
every class read the Social Contract with avidity, 
and during the Revolution they proceeded to put its 
democratic teachings into effect. 

Rousseau, Voltaire, and Montesquieu were among 
the contributors to the famous Encyclopedia, a work 
in seventeen volumes, which appeared after the mid¬ 
dle of the eighteenth century. As the name indi¬ 
cates, it formed a repository of all the scientific and 
historical knowledge of the age. The Encycloped¬ 
ists, as its editors are known, sought to guide opinion, 
as well as to give information. They were radical 
thinkers, who combined in a great effort to throw 
the light of reason on the dark places of the social 
order. Among the abuses attacked by them were 
religious intolerance, the slave trade, the cruel crim¬ 
inal law, and the inequitable system of taxation. The 
Encyclopedists even ventured to criticize absolutism 
in government. Their work thus set in motion a 


364 


The Old Regime 


current of revolt which did much to undermine both 
Church and State in France. 

The Enlightened Despots 

The ideas of the philosophers spread throughout 
those parts of Europe where French models were 
followed. Even kings and statesmen began to be 
affected by the spirit of reform. European rulers 
did not intend to surrender the least fraction of abso¬ 
lute power; they were still autocrats who believed in 
government by one strong man rather than by the 
democratic many; but with their despotism they 
combined a paternal solicitude for the welfare of 
their subjects. They took measures to secure reli¬ 
gious toleration, to relieve poverty, to codify the laws, 
to provide elementary education, and to encourage 
scientific research. These activities have won for 
them the name of the “enlightened despots.” 

In Russia Catherine the Great posed as an enlight¬ 
ened despot. Catherine was a learned woman, at 
least for an empress. She wrote flattering letters to 
Voltaire and the other Encyclopedists and conferred 
on them gifts and pensions. Montesquieu she 
especially admired, saying that were she the pope 
she would canonize him. But Catherine paid little 
more than lip-service to the ideas of the French phi¬ 
losophers. If she abolished torture, she did not do 
away with the knout; for capital punishment she only 
substituted the living death of exile in Siberia. Her 
toleration of dissenters from the Orthodox Church 
stopped short of allowing them to build chapels for 
public worship, and her passion for legislative re¬ 
form grew cold when she found that she must begin 
by freeing the serfs. Catherine’s real attitude is 


The Enlightened Despots 365 

exhibited in a letter to the governor of Moscow: 
“My dear prince, do not complain that the Russians 
have no desire for instruction; if I institute schools it 
is not for us, it is for Europe, where we must keep 
our position in public opinion. But the day when 
our peasants shall wish to become educated both you 
and I will lose our places.” 

Catherine’s contemporary, Frederick the Great, 
was a despot more sincere and more enlightened. He 
worked harder and had fewer pleasures than any 
other king of his day. “Monarchs,” he once wrote, 
“are not invested with authority that they may riot in 
voluptuousness.” Although Frederick’s resources 
had been so completely drained by the Seven 
Years’ War that it was necessary for him to melt the 
silver in the royal palaces and debase the currency, 
his vigorous measures soon restored the national 
prosperity. He labored in a hundred ways to make 
Prussia the best-governed state in Europe. Thus, 
he founded elementary schools so that his subjects 
could learn at least to read and write, and reformed 
the courts so that everybody from high to low might 
be assured of impartial justice. A Deist in religion, 
the correspondent and friend of Voltaire, Frederick 
declared that every one should be allowed to get to 
heaven in his own way, and backed up his declara¬ 
tion by putting Roman Catholics on an equality with 
Protestants throughout the Prussian dominions. No 
less than thirty volumes, all in French, contain the 
poems, letters, and treatises on history, politics, and 
military matters which Frederick composed. This 
philosopher on the throne held the attention of his 
generation in the world of ideas as well as in that of 
diplomacy and war. 


366 


The Old Regime 


In Austria, Joseph II, the eldest son of Maria 
Theresa, presented a less successful type of the en¬ 
lightened despot. Joseph regarded Frederick the 
Great as the ideal of a modern ruler. He wished to 
transform the various peoples in the Hapsburg 
realm, with all their differences of race, speech, re¬ 
ligion, and aspirations, into a single unified nation. 
German officials sent out from Vienna were to ad¬ 
minister the affairs of each province. The army was 
to be built up by compulsory service after the Prus¬ 
sian model. German was to be used everywhere as 
the official language. Most unwisely, however, 
Joseph tried to do in a short lifetime what all the 
Hapsburg rulers after him could not accomplish. 
The result was that his measures to Germanize Hun¬ 
garians, Bohemians, Italians, and Netherlanders 
only aroused hostility and did not long survive his 
death. 

Paternal government had two serious weaknesses. 
First, the despots could not determine the policy of 
their successors. An able and liberal-minded ruler 
might be followed by a ruler who was indolent, ex¬ 
travagant, and unprogressive. In Prussia, for in¬ 
stance, the weak reign of Frederick the Great’s suc¬ 
cessor undid much of his work. The same thing 
happened in Spain and Portugal. Second, the des¬ 
pots, however enlightened, treated their subjects as 
children and enacted reforms without first discover¬ 
ing whether reformation was popularly desired. 
Because of these weaknesses, the eighteenth-century 
conception of absolute monarchs ruling for their 
people’s good was certain to be superseded by the 
modern idea of the people ruling themselves. But 
to bring this about, a revolution was necessary. 


THE M-N. WORftS 



























































CHAPTER XI 


THE REVOLUTIONARY AND NAPOLEONIC ERA, 

1789 - 1815 . 

Eve of the French Revolution 

WHAT we call the French Revolution refers to a 
series of events in France, between 1789 and 1799, 
by which divine-right monarchy gave way to a re¬ 
public, and class distinctions and privileges disap¬ 
peared in favor of social equality. This revolution 
started in France, not because the misery of the 
people had become more intolerable there than in 
other parts of the Continent, but because France was 
then the most advanced of Continental countries. 
French peasants and artisans were free enough and 
intelligent enough to be critical of their government. 
Next to Great Britain, France contained the most 
numerous, prosperous, and influential bourgeoisie. 
Members of this class furnished the Revolution with 
its principal leaders. Even the nobility and clergy 
included many men who realized the abuses of the 
Old Regime and wished to abolish them. In short, 
the revolutionary impulse stirred all ranks of French 
society. 

That impulse came in part across the Channel. 
The spectacle of the Puritan Revolution and the 
“Glorious Revolution” in the seventeenth century 
affected Frenchmen in the eighteenth century. The 
English had put one king to death and had expelled 
another; they had established the supremacy of Par- 

367 


368 Revolutionary and Napoleonic Era 

liament in the state. It was the example of parlia¬ 
mentary England which Montesquieu held up to the 
emulation of his countrymen. It was the political 
philosophy of the Englishman, John Locke, upon 
which Rousseau founded his doctrine of the sover¬ 
eignty of the people. 

A second impulse came from across the Atlantic. 
After the close of the War of American Indepen¬ 
dence, the French common soldiers, together with 
Lafayette and other officers, returned home to spread 
republican doctrines. Very important was the work 
of Benjamin Franklin, who for nearly a decade rep¬ 
resented the American government at Paris. His 
engaging manners, practical wisdom, and high prin¬ 
ciples won general admiration. The portrait of the 
Philadelphia printer hung in every house, and at re¬ 
publican festivals his bust figured side by side with 
that of Rousseau. “Homage to Franklin,” cried an 
enthusiastic Frenchman, “he gave us our first lesson 
in liberty.” 

To understand the outbreak of the French Revolu¬ 
tion it is necessary to go back to the long reign of 
Louis XV. France had never had so unkingly a 
sovereign as this successor of the “Grand Monarch.” 
All his life he was an idler. He hunted, he danced, 
he gambled, he sank deep in the frivolities and im¬ 
moralities of Versailles, he did everything but rule. 
The government fell more and more into the hands 
of corn tiers and adventurers,whose main concern was 
to line their own pockets at the expense of the public 
treasury. 

The foolish alliances and fatal wars upon which 
Louis XV was persuaded to enter reduced France to 
the position of a second-rate power. In the Seven 


Eve of the French Revolution 369 

Years’ War French armies were repeatedly van¬ 
quished on Continental battle-fields, and French 
fleets were swept from the high seas. When the 
Peace of Paris was signed in 1763, the French flag 
ceased to fly in North America, and it flew in India 
only by permission of England. The annexation of 
Lorraine and Corsica did not compensate for the loss 
of a colonial empire. The military failures of the 
king’s reign humiliated his subjects and undermined 
their loyalty to him. 

The wars and extravagance of Louis XV added to 
the legacy of debt with which his predecessor on the 
throne had saddled France. The treasury every year 
faced a chronic deficit. It could only be met by the 
dangerous expedient of fresh loans, involving still 
larger outlays for interest charges. As long as the 
government refused to take proper measures of 
economy and continued to exempt the clergy and no¬ 
bility from their share of taxation, little improve¬ 
ment of the financial situation was possible. France, 
the richest country in Europe, with a population 
greater than that of any rival state, became virtually 
bankrupt. 

The French monarchy, so despised abroad, had to 
face a growing volume of complaints at home. Louis 
XV did his best to stifle them. A rigid censorship 
muzzled the press. Postoflice officials opened letters 
passing through the mails and revealed their contents 
to the king. Books and pamphlets, obnoxious to the 
government, were burned by the common hangman, 
and their authors were imprisoned. No man’s liberty 
was secure, for the police, if provided with an order 
of arrest signed by the king (a lettre de cachet ), 
could send any one to jail. Suspected persons some- 


37 ° Revolutionary and Napoleonic Era 

times remained prisoners for years without trial. 
•Yet in spite of all measures of repression, opposition 
to the monarchy steadily increased. 

Louis XVI, the grandson of Louis XV, mounted 
the throne when only twenty years old. Virtuous, 
pious, and well-meaning, he was the sort of ruler 
who in quiet times might have won the esteem of the 
French people. He was, however, weak, indolent, 
slow of thought, and very slow of decision. It has 
been well said that Louis XVI “could love, forgive, 
suffer, and die,” but that he did not know how to 
reign. 

The youthful king began his reign auspiciously 
by appointing a new ministry, in which Turgot held 
the most responsible position. He was a friend of 
Voltaire, a contributor to the Encyclopedia, an econ¬ 
omist of the physiocratic school, and a successful 
administrator. Turgot summed up his financial 
policy in the three maxims, “No bankruptcy, no in¬ 
crease of taxation, no loans.” Expenses were to be 
reduced by cutting off the pensions to courtiers, whose 
only merit was, in the words of a contemporary 
writer, “to have taken the trouble to be born.” The 
taxes bearing most heavily on the Third Estate were 
to be replaced by a general tax on all landowners. 
Peasants were to be no longer forced to work without 
pay on public highways and bridges. The old 
guilds, which hampered industry, were to be abol¬ 
ished. The vexatious tolls and duties on the passage 
of grain from one province to another were to be 
swept away. Could such reforms have been carried 
out, France would have had a bloodless and orderly 
revolution. 

But they were not carried out. The privileged 


The Estates-General 


37i 


classes would not surrender their privileges, nor 
favorites their pensions, nor monopolists their unjust 
gains, without a struggle. The weak king, who once 
declared that “the only persons who truly love the 
people are Monsieur Turgot and myself,” failed to 
support him against the intrigues of the court party, 
led by his queen, Marie Antoinette, a daughter 
of Maria Theresa. Turgot’s dismissal from office 
after two years of power removed the one man who 
could have saved absolutism in France. 

The finances of the government went from bad to 
worse after the fall of Turgot. His successors in the 
ministry relied mainly on fresh loans to cover the 
deficits of the treasury and avert bankruptcy. From 
the standpoint of French interests, Louis XVI com¬ 
mitted a fatal error in allowing himself to be per¬ 
suaded to intervene in the War of American Inde¬ 
pendence. America was freed; Great Britain was 
humbled; but the war forced up the public debt of 
France by leaps and bounds. When at last it became 
impossible to borrow more money, the king yielded 
reluctantly to the popular demand for the convoca¬ 
tion of the Estates-General. He appealed to the na¬ 
tion for aid, thereby confessing the failure of absolut¬ 
ism. 


The Estates-General, 1789 

The Estates-General, the old feudal assembly of 
France, had not met for one hundred and seventy- 
five years. Suddenly awakened from their long 
slumber, the representatives of the clergy, the nobles, 
and the Third Estate appeared at Versailles to take 
counsel with the king. The written instructions 
drawn up in every part of the country for the guid- 


37 2 Revolutionary and Napoleonic Era 

ance of each representative, though not revolutionary 
in wording, set forth a long list of abuses to be re¬ 
moved. While Louis XVI would have been satisfied 
with measures to increase the revenues, most French¬ 
men wanted thoroughgoing reforms. 

Not quite half of the twelve hundred-odd mem¬ 
bers of the Estates-General belonged to the two privi¬ 
leged orders. About two-thirds of the delegates of 
the Third Estate were members of the legal profes¬ 
sion. A few were liberal nobles. Less than a dozen 
came from the lower classes. As a whole, the 
Estates-General represented the most prosperous and 
intelligent people of France. 

The Third Estate possessed two very competent 
leaders in Count Mirabeau and the Abbe Sieyes. 
The former belonged by birth and the latter by office 
to the privileged classes, but both gladly accepted 
election as representatives of the Third Estate. 
Mirabeau, a born statesman and orator, had a sin- 
cere belief in constitutional government. He wished 
to set up in France a strong monarchy, limited by a 
constitution after the English model. Sieyes, a 
cleric more devoted to politics than to theology, had 
recently stirred all Frenchmen by a remarkable 
pamphlet entitled What is the Third Estate? He 
answered, “Everything.” “What has it been hither¬ 
to?” “Nothing.” “What does it ask?” “To be 
something.” 

The three estates in former days sat as separate 
chambers and voted by orders. If this usage were 
now followed, the clergy and the nobility would 
have two votes to one for the Third Estate. The 
commoners insisted, however, that the new Estates- 
General no longer represented feudal France, but 


The Estates-General 


373 


the united nation. They wished, therefore, that it 
should organize as a single body, in which the mem¬ 
bers voted as individuals. Since the Third Estate 
had been permitted to send twice as many delegates 
as either the clergy or the nobility, this arrangment 
would enable it to outvote' the privileged orders and 
carry any reforming measures desired. 

The debate over the organization of the Estates- 
General continued for several weeks and resulted in 
a deadlock. At last, on the motion of Sieyes, the 
Third Estate cut the Gordian knot by boldly declar¬ 
ing itself the National Assembly. Then and there it 
asserted its right to act for the nation as a whole. 
Representatives of the clergy and nobility might 
come in if they pleased, but the National Assembly 
could do without them. 

Louis XVI, left to himself, might have been too 
inert for resistance, but his wife, his two brothers, 
and the court party persuaded him to make a stand. 
Troops were now posted before the doors of the hall 
which had been set apart in the palace of Versailles 
for the Third Estate. Finding their entrance barred, 
the undaunted commoners adjourned to a building 
near by, which had been used as a tennis court. Here 
they took a solemn oath never to separate, but to 
continue to meet, under all circumstances, until they 
had drawn up a constitution for France. This action 
brought to their side the representatives of the lower 
clergy (cures), who were inclined to the popular 
cause. 

But the king persisted in his opposition. Sum¬ 
moning the Three Estates before him, he made 
known the royal will that they should deliberate 
apart. The higher clergy and nobility immediately 


374 Revolutionary and Napoleonic Era 

withdrew to their separate chambers. The Third 
Estate, with its clerical supporters, did not stir. 
When the master of ceremonies repeated the king’s 
command, Mirabeau retorted, “We are assembled 
by the national will; force alone shall disperse us.” 
Louis XVI did not dare to use force, especially after 
many of the nobles, headed by Lafayette, joined the 
commoners. The king now gave way and requested 
the rest of the clerical and noble representatives to 
unite with the Third Estate in the National As¬ 
sembly. 

Outbreak of the French Revolution 

Thus far we have been following a constitutional 
movement confined to the upper and middle classes 
of French society. Now, however, the lower classes 
began to make their influence felt upon the course 
of events, first in Paris and later in the provinces. 
Paris was a manufacturing center, with a large 
population of artisans, very poor, often idle, and 
inclined to be turbulent. Their ranks were swelled 
at this time by crowds of peasants, whom the bad 
harvests and severe winter of the preceding year had 
driven into the city. Here, in fact, were all the 
elements of a dangerous mob, on whose ignorance 
and passion reformers, agitators, and demagogues 
could play what tunes they willed. 

Soon came ominous news. Louis XVI had hardly 
accepted the National Assembly before he changed 
his mind and determined to dissolve that body. A 
large number of troops, mainly German and Swiss 
regiments in the service of France, were massed near 
Paris, obviously with intent of awing, perhaps 
seizing, the representatives of the people. It was 


Outbreak of the French Revolution 375 


then that the Parisians made the cause of the 
National Assembly their own. Rioting broke out in 
the capital, and for several days anarchy prevailed. 
Reinforced by deserters from the army, the mob 
attacked and captured the Bastille, a fortress where 
political offenders had been often confined through 
lettres de cachet. The Bastille at this time contained 
only seven prisoners, all there for just cause, but it 
symbolized the tyranny of the Old Regime, and its 
fall created an immense sensation throughout France 
and in other countries. Louis XVI, on hearing the 
news, exclaimed, “Why, this is a revolt!” “No, Sire,” 
replied a courtier, “this is a revolution.” 

Now that Paris was practically independent of 
? 1 ^ more prominent and well-to-do 
citizens took steps to secure an orderly government. 
They formed a municipal council, or Commune, 
made up of representatives elected from the different 
wards of the city. A militia force, called the National 
Guard, was also organized, and the popular Lafay¬ 
ette was selected as commander. Meanwhile, Louis 
XVI had seen the necessity of submission. He with¬ 
drew the troops, got rid of his reactionary ministers, 
and paid a visit of reconciliation to the Parisians. 
In token of his good intentions, the king put on a red, 
white, and blue cockade, the red and blue being the 
colors of Paris and white that of the Bourbons. This 
was to be the new tricolor of France. 

The example set by Paris was quickly copied by 
the provinces. Many cities and towns set up com¬ 
munes and formed national guards. In the country 
districts the peasants sacked and burned numerous 
castles of the nobility, taking particular pains to 
destroy the legal documents by which the nobles 


37 6 Revolutionary and Napoleonic Era 

exercised their manorial rights. Monasteries, also, 
were often pillaged. The government showed itself 
unable to maintain order or to protect life and prop¬ 
erty. Troops in the garrison towns refused to obey 
their officers and fraternized with the populace. 
Royal officials quitted their posts. Courts of justice 
ceased to act. Public works stopped, and the collec¬ 
tion of taxes became almost impossible. From end 
to end of France the Old Regime collapsed amid 
universal confusion. 

The revolution in the provinces led directly to one 
of the most striking scenes of French history. On 
the night of August 4-5, while the National Assembly 
had under consideration measures for stilling the 
unrest in France, one of the nobles—a relative of 
Lafayette—urged that it remove the feudal burdens 
still resting on the peasantry. Then, amid hysterical 
enthusiasm, noble after noble and cleric after cleric 
arose in his place to propose equality of taxation, the 
repeal of the game laws, the freeing of such serfs as 
were still to be found in France, the abolition of 
tithes, tolls, and pensions, and the extinction of all 
other long-established privileges. A decree “abolish¬ 
ing the feudal system"’ was passed by the National 
Assembly within the next few days and was signed 
by the king. The reforms which Turgot labored in 
vain to secure thus became accomplished facts. It 
is well to remember, however, that the Old Regime 
had already fallen in France; the decree of the 
National Assembly did little more than outlaw it. 

The National Assembly, 1789-1791 

The National Assembly remained in session for the 
next two years. One of its most important under- 



377 


The National Assembly 

takings was the reform of local government. During 
the eight centuries between Hugh Capet and Louis 
XVI, France had been built up by the gradual weld¬ 
ing together of a number of provinces varying great¬ 
ly in size, and each with its own privileges, customs 
and laws. Eighteenth-century France, in conse¬ 
quence, did not form a compact, well-organized state. 
The old provinces were now replaced by eighty-three 
artificial districts (departements) , approximately 
uniform in size and population and named after some 
river, mountain, or other natural feature. A map of 
contemporary France still shows the departements. 

The National Assembly next undertook a reorgan¬ 
ization of the Church. It ordered that all Church 
lands should be declared national property, broken 
up into small lots, and sold to the peasants at a low 
price. By way of partial indemnity, the government 
agreed to pay fixed salaries to the clergy. All 
appointments to ecclesiastical positions were taken 
from the hands of king and pope and placed in the 
hands of the people. The National Assembly also 
suppressed the monasteries, but undertook to pension 
the monks and nuns. 

The desperate condition of the finances led to the 
adoption of a desperate remedy. The National 
Assembly passed a decree authorizing the issue of 
notes to the value of four hundred million francs 
on the security of the former Church lands. To 
emphasize this security the title of assignats was given 
to the notes. If the issue of assignats could have been 
restricted, as Mirabeau desired, to less than the value 
of the property pledged to pay for them, they might 
have been a safe means of raising a revenue; but the 
continued needs of the treasury led to their multipli- 


378 Revolutionary and Napoleonic Era 

cation in enormous quantities. Then followed the 
inevitable consequences of paper money inflation. 
Gold and silver disappeared from circulation, while 
prices rose so high that the time came when it needed 
a basket of assignats to buy a pair of boots. The 
assignats in the end became practically worthless. 
The finances of the government, instead of being 
bettered by this resort to paper money, were left in 
a worse state than before. 

The National Assembly gave to France in 1791 
the written constitution which had been promised in 
the “Tennis-Court Oath.” The constitution estab¬ 
lished a legislative assembly of a single chamber, with 
wide powers over every branch of the government. 
The hereditary monarchy was retained, but it was 
a monarchy in little more than name. The king 
could not dissolve the legislature, and he had only a 
“suspensive veto” of its measures. A bill passed by 
three successive legislatures became a law even with¬ 
out his consent. Mirabeau wished to accord the king 
greater authority, but the National Assembly dis¬ 
trusted Louis XVI as a possible traitor to the Revo¬ 
lution and took every precaution to render him 
harmless. The distrust which the bourgeois framers 
of the constitution felt toward the lower classes was 
shown by the clause limiting the privilege of voting 
to those who paid taxes equivalent to at least three 
days’ wages. Almost a half of the citizens, some 
of them peasants but most of them artisans, were thus 
excluded from the franchise. 

The National Assembly prefixed to the constitu¬ 
tion a Declaration of the Rights of Man. This 
memorable document, which shows Rousseau’s influ¬ 
ence in almost every line, formed a comprehensive 


379 


The First French Republic 

statement of the principles underlying the Revolu¬ 
tion. All persons, so ran the Declaration, shall be 
equally eligible to all dignities, public positions, and 
occupations, according to their abilities. No person 
shall be arrested or imprisoned except according to 
law. Any one accused of wrongdoing shall be pre¬ 
sumed innocent until he is adjudged guilty. Every 
citizen may freely speak, write, and print his 
opinions, including his religious views, subject only 
to responsibility for the abuse of this freedom. All 
the citizens have the right to decide what taxes are to 
be paid and how they are to be used. No one shall 
be deprived of his property, except for public pur¬ 
poses, and then only after indemnification. These 
clauses of the Declaration reappeared in the consti¬ 
tutions framed in France and other Continental coun¬ 
tries during the nineteenth century. The document, 
as a whole, should be compared with the English 
Bill of Rights and the first ten amendments to the 
American Constitution. 

The First French Republic, 1792 

The first phase of the French Revolution was now 
ended. Up to this point it has appeared rather as a 
reformation, which abolished the Old Regime and 
substituted a limited monarchy for absolutism and 
divine right. Many men believed that under the 
new constitution France would henceforth enjoy the 
blessings of peace and prosperity. They were quickly 
undeceived. The French people, unfortunately, 
lacked all training in the difficult art of self-govern¬ 
ment. Between their political incapacity and the 
opposition of the reactionaries and the radicals, the 
revolutionary movement drifted into its second and 


380 Revolutionary and Napoleonic Era 

more violent phase, which was marked by the estab¬ 
lishment of a republic. 

The reactionaries consisted, in part, of nobles who 
had hastily quitted the country upon the outbreak of 
the Revolution. Their emigration continued for 
several years, until thousands of voluntary exiles 
(emigres) had gathered along the northern and east¬ 
ern frontier of France. Headed by the king’s two 
brothers, the count of Provence and the count of 
Artois, they kept up an unceasing intrigue against 
the Revolution and even organized a little army to 
recover by force their titles, privileges, and property. 

Had the reactionaries included only the emigres 
beyond the borders, they might not have proved very 
troublesome. But they found support in France. 
The Constitution of 1791 had made the clergy state 
officials, elected by the people and paid by the gov¬ 
ernment. Such an arrangement could not be accept¬ 
able to sincere Roman Catholics, because it separated 
the Church from papal control. The pope, who 
had already protested against the confiscation of 
Church property and the dissolution of the mon¬ 
asteries, forbade the clergy to take the oath of fidelity 
to the new constitution. Nearly all the bishops and 
perhaps two-thirds of the cures obeyed him; these 
were called the non-juring clergy. Until this time 
the parish priests had generally supported the revo¬ 
lutionary movement. They now turned against it, 
carrying with them their peasant flocks. The Roman 
Catholic Church, with all its spiritual influence, was 
henceforth ai rayed against the French Revolution. 

To Louis XVT, the new order of things was most 
distasteful. The Constitution, soon to be put into 
effect, seemed to him a violation of his rights as a 


The First French Republic 381 


monarch, while the treatment of the clergy deeply 
offended him as a Christian. As long as Mirabeau 
lived, that statesman had always been able to dissuade 
the king from seeking foreign help, but Mirabeau’s 
premature death deprived him of his only wise 
adviser. Louis’s opposition to the revolutionists was 
strengthened by Marie Antoinette, who keenly felt 
the degradation of her position. 

The king and queen finally resolved to escape by 
flight. Disguising themselves, Marie Antoinette as 
a Russian lady and Louis as her valet, they drove 
away in the evening from the palace of the Tuileries 
and made straight for the eastern frontier. But Louis 
exposed himself needlessly on the way; recognition 
followed; and at Varennes excited crowds stopped 
the royal fugitives and turned them back to Paris. 
Th is ill-starred adventure greatly weakened the 
loyalty of the French people for Louis XVI, while 
Marie Antoinette, the ‘‘Austrian woman,” became 
more detested than ever. 

Besides the reactionaries who opposed the Revolu¬ 
tion, there were the radicals who thought that it had 
not gone far enough. The radicals secured their 
chief following among the poverty-stricken work¬ 
ingmen of the cities, those without property and with 
no steady employment. Of all classes in France, the 
urban proletariat seemed to have gained the least by 
the Revolution. No chance of future betterment lay 
before them, for the bourgeois Constitution of 1791 
expressly provided that only tax-payers could vote 
or hold public office. The proletariat might well 
believe that, in spite of all phrases about the “rights 
of man,” they had merely exchanged the rule of the 
privileged classes for that of the bourgeoisie . 


382 Revolutionary and Napoleonic Era 

The radical movement naturally centered in Paris, 
the brain and nerve center of France. It was fostered 
by inflammatory newspapers, which agitated for a 
popular uprising against the government, by the bit¬ 
ter speeches of popular orators, and especially by 
numerous political clubs. The control of these clubs 
lay largely in the hands of young lawyers, who 
embraced the cause of the masses and soon became 
as hostile to the bourgeoisie as to the aristocracy. 
The famous Jacobin Club, so named from a former 
monastery of the Jacobin monks where its meetings 
were held, had hundreds of branches throughout 
France, all engaged in radical propaganda. 

The leaders of the Jacobin Club included two men 
who were destined to influence profoundly the subse¬ 
quent course of the Revolution. One was Danton, 
who sprang from the middle class. Highly culti¬ 
vated, a successful advocate at the bar, Danton with 
his loud voice and forcible gestures could arouse his 
audience to wild enthusiasm. The other was Robes¬ 
pierre, also a middle-class lawyer with democratic 
sympathies. This austere, precise little man, whose 
youth had been passed in poverty, early became a 
disciple of Rousseau and the oracle of the Jacobins. 
Mirabeau once prophesied of Robespierre that he 
would “go far; he believes all that he says.” We shall 
soon see how far he went. 

A new influence began at this point to affect the 
course of the French Revolution. Continental mon- 
archs, however “enlightened,” felt no sympathy for 
a popular movement which threatened the stability 
of their own thrones. If absolutism and divine right 
were overthrown in France, they might before long 
be overthrown in Austria and Prussia. The Austrian 


The First French Republic 383 

monarch, a brother of Marie Antoinette, now joined 
with the Prussian king in a statement to the effect 
that the restoration of the old government in France 
formed an object of “common interest to all sover¬ 
eigns of Europe.” The two rulers also agreed to 
prepare their armies for active service abroad. Their 
announced intention to suppress the Revolution by 
force provoked the French people into a declaration 
of war. Though directed only at the Austrian mon¬ 
arch, it also brought his Prussian ally into the field 
against France. 

The French began the contest with immense 
enthusiasm. They regarded themselves as armed 
apostles to spread the gospel of freedom throughout 
Europe. But their troops, poorly organized and 
disciplined, suffered severe reverses, one result of 
which was further to exasperate public opinion 
against the monarchy. Suspicion pointed to Louis 
XVI and Marie Antoinette as the traitors who were 
secretly revealing the French plan of campaign to 
the enemies of France. Suspicion passed into hatred, 
when the allied commander-in-chief, as he led his 
army across the frontier, issued a proclamation 
threatening Paris with destruction if the slightest 
harm befell the royal family. At this juncture the 
Jacobins under Danton organized an uprising of the 
Parisian proletariat. The mob stormed the Tuileries, 
massacred the Swiss Guard, and compelled the 
National Assembly to suspend the king from office. 
A new assembly, to be called the National Conven¬ 
tion, was summoned to prepare another constitution 
for France. 

Then followed the next scene in the bloody drama. 
The Commune of Paris, controlled by the Jacobins, 


384 Revolutionary and Napoleonic Era 


emptied the prisons of all persons suspected of 
royalist leanings and butchered them without mercy. 
“We must stop the enemy/' said Danton, “by striking 
terror into the royalists.” More than one thousand 
men, women, and children perished in the “Septem¬ 
ber massacres.” Shortly afterward the National 
Convention held its first meetings and by a unanimous 
vote decreed the abolition of the monarchy. All pub¬ 
lic documents were henceforth to be dated from 
September 22, 1792, the beginning of “the first year 
of the French Republic.” 

The National Convention, 1792-1795 

The National Convention contained nearly eight 
hundred members, all republicans, but republicans 
of diverse shades of opinion. One group was that of 
the Girondists, so-called because its leaders came 
from the departement of the Gironde. The Giron¬ 
dists represented largely the bourgeoisie; they desired 
a speedy return to law and order. Opposite them 
sat the far more radical and far more resolute group 
of Jacobins, who leaned for support upon the turbu¬ 
lent populace of Paris. The majority of the dele¬ 
gates belonged to neither party and voted now on one 
side and now on the other. Eventually, however, they 
fell under Jacobin domination. 

The feud between the two parties broke out in the 
first days of the National Convention. The Jacobins 
clamored for the death of Louis XVI as a traitor; 
most of the Girondists, less convinced of the king’s 
guilt, would have spared his life. Mob influence 
carried through the assembly, by a small majority, 
the vote which sent “Citizen Louis Capet” to the 
guillotine. The king’s accusers did not have the evi- 


The National Convention 385 

dence, which we now possess, proving that he had 
been in constant communication with the foreign 
invaders. His execution was a political measure. 

Louis must die,” urged Robespierre, “that the coun¬ 
try may live.” Danton, railing against the enemies 
of France, could now declare, “We have thrown 
them as gage of battle the head of a king.” 

Meanwhile, the tide of foreign invasion receded 
rapidly. Two days before the inauguration of the 
republic the French stayed the advance of the allies 
at Valmy, scarcely a hundred miles from Paris. The 
battle of \ almy was a small affair, but it first gave 
confidence to the revolutionary armies and nerved 
them for further resistance. The French now took 
the offensive and invaded the Austrian Netherlands. 
Fired by these successes, the National Convention 
offered the aid of France to all nations which were 
striving after freedom; in other words, it proposed 
to propagate the Revolution by force of arms 
throughout Europe. This was a blow in the face to 
autocratic rulers and privileged classes everywhere. 
After the execution of Louis XVI Austria, Prussia, 
Great Britain, Holland, Spain, and Sardinia leagued 
together to overthrow republican France. 

The republic at the same time faced domestic in¬ 
surrection. The peasants of La Vendee, a district 
south of the lower Loire, were royalists in feeling 
and devoted to Roman Catholicism. When an at¬ 
tempt was made to draft them as soldiers, they broke 
out in open rebellion. The important naval station 
of Toulon, a royalist center, surrendered to the Brit¬ 
ish. A tremor of revolt also ran through the great 
cities of Lyons, Marseilles, and Bordeaux, whose 
bourgeoisie resented Parisian radicalism. 


386 Revolutionary and Napoleonic Era 

The peril to the republic, without and within, 
showed the need of a strong central government. The 
National Convention met this need by selecting 
twelve of its members to serve as a Committee of 
Public Safety, in which at first Danton, and later 
Robespierre, was the leading figure. The committee 
received almost unlimited authority over the life and 
property of every one in France. It proceeded to 
enforce a general levy or conscription, which placed 
all males of military age at the service of the armies. 
This earliest of draft laws ran as follows: “The 
young men shall go to fight; married men shall forge 
weapons and transport supplies; the women shall 
make tents and uniforms or serve in the hospitals; the 
children shall make lint; the old men shall be carried 
to the public squares to excite the courage of soldiers, 
hatred of kings, and enthusiasm for the unity of the 
republic.” Carnot, another member of the commit¬ 
tee, the “organizer of victory” as he came to be called, 
drilled and disciplined the new national forces and 
sent them forth, singing the Marseillaise, to battle. 

The mercenary troops of old Europe could not 
resist these citizen-soldiers. Filled with enthusiasm 
and in overwhelming numbers, they soon carried the 
war into enemy territory. The grand coalition dis¬ 
solved under the shock. By the Treaty of Basel in 
T /95 Prussia ceded her provinces on the west bank 
of the Rhine to France, which thus secured the 
“natural boundary” so ardently desired by Louis 
XIT. Duiing this year Spain and Holland also 
made peace with France. Holland became the 
Batavian Republic under French protection. 

The Committee of Public Safety likewise dealt 
effectively with domestic insurrection. It resorted to 


The National Convention 


387 


a policy of terrorism, as a means of suppressing the 
anti-revolutionary elements. A law was passed 
which declared “suspect” every noble, every office¬ 
holder before the Revolution, every person who had 
had any dealings with an emigre, and every person 
who could not produce a certificate of citizenship. 
No one could feel safe under this law. As a wit after¬ 
wards remarked, all France in those days went about 
conjugating, “I am suspect, thou art suspect, he is 
suspect,” etc. Special courts were set up in Paris and 
the provincial cities to try those accused and usually 
to order them to the guillotine. 

France endured the Reign of Terror for over a 
year. During this time several thousand persons 
were executed under form of law, while many more 
were massacred without the pretense of a trial. The 
carnage spread beyond the non-juring clergy and the 
aristocracy to include the bourgeoisie and even many 
artisans and peasants. Among the distinguished vic¬ 
tims at Paris were Marie Antoinette, the sister of 
Louis XVI, the duke of Orleans (a member of the 
royal house who had intrigued to get himself raised 
to the throne), and the principal Girondist leaders. 
Then the Terror began to consume its own authors. 
Danton, who had wearied of the bloodshed and coun¬ 
seled moderation, suffered death. “Show my head 
to the people,” he said to the executioner, “they do 
not see the like every day.” The fanatical Robes¬ 
pierre now became the virtual dictator of France. 
He continued the slaughter for a few months until 
his enemies in the National Convention secured the 
upper hand, and hurried him without trial to the 
death to which he had sent so many of his fellow- 
citizens. 


}88 Revolutionary and Napoleonic Era 

Robespierre’s execution ended the Reign of Ter¬ 
ror. The policy of terrorism, however effective 
in crushing the enemies of the republic, had long 
since been perverted to party and personal ends. The 
inevitable reaction against Jacobin tyranny followed. 
The bourgeoisie gained control of the National Con¬ 
vention, which now resumed its task of preparing a 
constitution for republican France. The new instru¬ 
ment of government provided for a legislature of two 
chambers and vested the executive authority in a 
Directory of five members, with most of the powers 
of the former Committee of Public Safety. 

Before the constitution went into effect, Paris 
became the scene of another mob outburst. Royalists 
and radicals joined forces and advanced to the attack 
of the Tuileries, where the National Convention was 
sitting. Here the rioters met such a cannonade of 
grape shot that they fled precipitately, leaving many 
of their number dead in the streets. The man who 
most distinguished himself as the defender of law and 
order was the young artillery general, Napoleon 
Bonaparte. 

The Directory and Napoleon, 1795-1799 

Napoleon Bonaparte was born at Ajaccio, Corsica, 
in 1769, only a year after that island became a French 
possession. He was the second son of an Italian 
lawyer of noble birth but decayed fortunes. 
Napoleon attended a preparatory school in France 
and went through the ordinary curriculum with 
credit, showed proficiency in mathematics, and 
devoted much of his leisure to reading history. After 
a brief military training in Paris, he entered an 
artillery regiment, thus realizing his boyish desire to 




































































































































I he Directory and Napoleon 389 

be a soldier. He was then a youth of sixteen years, 
poor, friendless, and without family influence. 

Napoleon took a keen interest in the reform move¬ 
ment then stirring France. A devoted admirer of 
Rousseau’s philosophy, he hated all privileges, all 
aristocracy. For a time, at least, he became a 
Jacobin. The Revolution gave him his first oppor¬ 
tunities. He commanded the artillery which com¬ 
pelled the British to evacuate Toulon in 1793 and 
two years later he helped defend the National Con¬ 
vention against the Parisian mob. Shortly afterward 
Carnot, who divined Napoleon’s genius, persuaded 
his colleagues on the Directory to intrust the young 
man with the command of the French army in Italy. 

When the Directory assumed office, France still 
numbered Great Britain, Sardinia, and Austria 
among her foes. Great Britain could not be assailed, 
because of the weakness of the French navy, but the 
other two countries offered fronts open to attack 
through northern Italy. Napoleon’s army, small and 
shabbily equipped, seemed a weak instrument for so 
formidable a task. But the “Little Corporal,” as his 
men nicknamed him, overcame all difficulties. His 
brilliant strategy first separated the Sardinians from 
their Austrian allies. The king of Sardinia then pur¬ 
chased peace by the cession of Savoy and Nice to 
France. After another year of fighting, which turned 
the Austrians out of northern Italy and brought 
the French to within eighty miles of Vienna, the 
Hapsburg monarch accepted the Treaty of Campo 
Formio. 

Austria ceded to France the Austrian Netherlands, 
which had already been occupied by the republican 
armies, and agreed to the annexation by France of 


39° Revolutionary and Napoleonic Era 

the Germanic lands west of the Rhine. She also 
recognized the independence of the Cisalpine Repub¬ 
lic, one of Napoleon’s creations in northern Italy. 
In return for these concessions, Austria received most 
of the Venetian territories conquered by Napoleon, 
including a valuable sea-coast along the Adriatic. 
France likewise profited by this Italian settlement, 
for both the Cisalpine Republic and the tiny Ligu¬ 
rian Republic (Genoa and the adjacent district) were 
under French influence. 

Great Britain now remained the only country to 
contest French supremacy in Europe. Napoleon 
determined to strike at her through her Oriental 
possessions. It was necessary, first of all, to wrest 
Egypt from the Ottoman Turks, for, as Napoleon 
never tired of asserting, “the power that is master of 
Egypt is master of India.’’ Napoleon easily per¬ 
suaded the Directory to give him the command of a 
strong expedition, which set sail from Toulon and 
reached Alexandria in safety. The Egyptia’n cam¬ 
paign had hardly begun before Lord Nelson, the 
British admiral, destroyed most of the French fleet, 
thus severing Napoleon’s communications with 
Europe. The French soon overran Egypt, but met 
a severe check when they carried the war into Syria. 
Faced by the collapse of his Oriental dreams, Napo¬ 
leon left his army to its fate and escaped to France. 
Here his highly colored reports of victories caused 
him to be greeted as the conqueror of the East. 

Affairs had gone badly for France during Napo¬ 
leon’s absence in Egypt. Great Britain, Austria, and 
Russia formed a second coalition against the repub¬ 
lic, put large armies in the field, and drove the 
French from Italy. This misfortune sapped the 


The Consulate 


39 i 


authority of the Directory and turned the eyes of 
most Frenchmen to Napoleon, as the one man who 
could guarantee victory abroad and order at home. 

e took advantage of the situation to plan with 
Sieyes and other politicians a coup d'etat. Three of 
the directors were induced to resign; the other two 
were placed under military guard; and the bayonets 
of Napoleon’s devoted soldiers forced the assemblies 
to dissolve. Napoleon now became virtually master 
of France. “I found the crown of France lying on 
the ground,” he once remarked, “and I picked it up 
with the sword.” Thus, within little more than ten 
years from the meeting of the Estates-General at 
Versailles, popular government gave way to the rule 
of one man. Autocracy supplanted democracy. 

The Consulate, 1799-1804 

After the coup d etat Napoleon proceeded to frame 
a constitution. It placed the executive power in the 
hands of three consuls, appointed for ten years. The 
First Consul (Napoleon himself) was really supreme. 
To him belonged the command of the army and 
navy, the right of naming and dismissing all the chief 
state officials, and the proposal of all new laws. 
Napoleon then submitted the constitution to the peo¬ 
ple for ratification. The popular vote, known as a 
plebiscite, showed an overwhelming majority in 
favor of the new government. 

The French accepted Napoleon’s rule the more 
readily because of the threatening war-clouds in Italy 
and on the Rhine. Though Russia soon withdrew 
from the second coalition, Austria and Great Britain 
remained in arms against France. Napoleon now 
led his troops across the Alps by the pass of the Great 


39 2 Revolutionary and Napoleonic Era 

St. Bernard, a feat rivaling Hannibal’s perform¬ 
ance, descended unexpectedly into Italy in the rear 
of the Austrian forces, and won a new triumph at 
Marengo. A few months later the French general 
Moreau inflicted a crushing defeat on the Austrians 
at Hohenlinden in Bavaria. These reverses brought 
the Hapsburg monarch to his knees, and he agreed 
to a peace which reaffirmed the provisions of the 
Treaty of Campo Formio. 

Great Britain and France now took steps to end 
the long war between them. The former country 
was all-powerful on the sea, the latter, on the land; 
but neither could strike a vital blow at the other. 
The Peace of Amiens, which they concluded, proved 
to be a truce rather than a peace. However, it 
enabled the First Consul to drop the sword for a time 
and take up the less spectacular but more enduring 
work of administration. He soon showed himself as 
great in statecraft as in war. 

One of Napoleon’s most important measures put 
the local government of all France directly under his 
control.. He placed a prefect over every departement 
and a subprefect over every subdivision of a departe¬ 
ment. Even the mayors of the larger towns and 
cities owed their positions to the First Consul. This 
arrangement enabled Napoleon to make his will felt 
promptly throughout the length and breadth of 
France. It survived Napoleon’s downfall and still 
continues to be the French system of local govern¬ 
ment. 

The same desire for unity and precision led Napo¬ 
leon to complete the codification of French law. 
Before the Revolution nearly three hundred differ¬ 
ent local codes had existed in France, giving force to 


The Consulate 


393 


Voltaire’s remark that a traveler there changed his 
laws as often as he changed his post-horses. The 
National Convention began the work of replacing 
this multiplicity of laws—Frankish, Roman, feudal, 
and royal—by a single uniform code. Napoleon and 
the commission of legal experts over whose deliber¬ 
ations he presided finished the task after about four 
years labor. The Code Napoleon embodied many 
revolutionary principles, such as civil equality, reli¬ 
gious toleration, and jury trial, and carried these 
principles into the foreign lands conquered by the 
French. It is still the prevailing law of both France 
and Belgium, while the codes of modern Holland, 
Italy, and Portugal have taken it as a model. 

Napoleon also healed the religious schism which 
had divided France since the Revolution. Though 
not himself an adherent of any form of Christianity, 
he felt the necessity of conciliating the many French 
Catholics who remained faithful to Rome. An agree¬ 
ment, called the Concordat, was now reached, pro¬ 
viding for the restoration of Catholicism as the state 
religion. Napoleon reserved to himself the appoint¬ 
ment of bishops and archbishops, and the pope gave 
up all claims to the confiscated property of the 
Church. The Concordat formed a singularly politic 
measure, for by confirming the peasantry in their 
possession of the ecclesiastical lands it bound up their 
interests with those of Napoleon. It continued to 
regulate the relations between France and the Papacy 
for more than a century. 

Nor did Napoleon forget the emigres. A law was 
soon passed extending amnesty to the nobles who had 
fled from France. More than forty thousand families 
now returned to their native land. 



394 Revolutionary and Napoleonic Era 

A long list might be drawn up of the other meas¬ 
ures which exhibit Napoleon's qualities as a states¬ 
man. He founded the Bank of France, still one of 
the leading financial institutions of the world. He 
established a system of higher education to take the 
place of the colleges and universities which had been 
abolished by a decree of the National Convention. 
He planned and partly carried out a vast network of 
canals and inland waterways, thus improving the 
means of communication and trade throughout 
France. Like the Roman emperors, he constructed 
a system of military highways radiating from the 
capital city to the remotest districts, in addition to two 
wonderful Alpine roads connecting France with 
Italy. Like the Romans, also, he had a taste for 
building, and many of the monuments which make 
Paris so splendid a city belong to the Napoleonic era. 
Napoleon’s conquests proved to be transitory, but 
what he accomplished for France in peaceful labors 
has endured to the present day. 

The First French Empire, 1804 

Napoleon’s victories in war and his policies in 
peace gained for him the support of all Frenchmen 
except the Jacobins, who would not admit that the 
Revolution had ended, and the royalists, who wished 
to restore the Bourbon monarchy. When in 1802 
the people were asked to vote on the question, “Shall 
Napoleon Bonaparte be consul for life?” the answer¬ 
ing “ayes” numbered over three and a half millions, 
the “noes” only a few thousands. Another plebiscite 
in 1804 decided, by an equally large majority, that 
the First Consul should become emperor. Before 
the high altar of Notre Dame Cathedral at Paris and 


395 


The First French Empire 

in the presence of the pope, the modern Charle¬ 
magne placed a golden laurel wreath upon his own 

head and assumed the title of Napoleon I, emperor 
of the French. 

Napoleon also proceeded to erect a monarchy on 

tahan soil. At Milan he crowned himself king as 

Charlemagne had done, with the “Iron Crown”’of 

the Lombards. North Italy thus became practically 
an annex of France. 

The emperor-king set up again at the Tuileries the 
etiquette and ceremonial of the Old Regime 
Already he had established the Legion of Honor to 
reward those who most industriously served him 
Now he created a nobility. His relatives and minis¬ 
ters became kings, princes, dukes, and counts; his 
ablest^ generals became marshals of France. “My 
titles,” Napoleon declared, “are a sort of civic crown; 
one can win them through one’s own efforts.” 

France, intoxicated with the imperial glory, forgot 
that she had come under the rule of one man. What 
hostile criticism Frenchmen might have leveled 
against Napoleon was stifled by the secret police, who 
arrested and imprisoned hundreds of persons obnox¬ 
ious to the emperor. The censorship of books and 
newspapers prevented any expression of public 
opinion. Many journals were suppressed; the 
remainder were allowed to publish only articles 
approved by the government. Even the schools and 
churches were made pillars of the new order, and 
Napoleon went so far as to prepare a catechism 
setting forth the duty of good Christians to love, 
respect, and obey their emperor. In all these ways 
he established a despotism as unqualified as that of 
Louis XIV. 


396 Revolutionary and Napoleonic Era 

Napoleon at War with Europe, 1805-1807 

The wars of the French Revolution, beginning in 
a conflict between democracy and monarchy, gradu¬ 
ally became a means of gratifying the French lust 
for territorial expansion. With the advent of Napo¬ 
leon they appeared still more clearly as wars of con¬ 
quest. The “successor of Charlemagne,” who carried 
the Roman eagles on his military standards, dreamed 
of universal sovereignty. Supreme in France, he 
would also be supreme in Europe. No lasting peace 
was possible with such a man, unless the European 
nations submitted tamely to his will. They would 
not submit, and as a result the Continent for ten years 
was drenched with blood. 

Austria in the revolutionary wars had been the 
chief opponent of France; in the wars of Napoleon 
Great Britain became his most persistent and relent¬ 
less enemy. That island-kingdom, which had 
defeated the giandiose schemes of Philip II and 
Louis XIV, could never consent to the creation of a 
French empire restricting hei trade in the profitable 
markets of the Continent and dominating western 
Europe. To preserve the European balance of 
power Great Britain formed coalition after coalition, 
using her money, her ships, and her soldiers unspar¬ 
ingly, and at length successfully, in the effort. 

The Peace of Amiens lasted little over a year. The 
war between Great Britain and France being then 
renewed, Napoleon made every preparation to over¬ 
throw “perfidious Albion.” Fie collected an army 
and a flotilla of flat-bottomed boats near Boulogne, 
apparently intending to “jump the ditch,” as he 
called the Channel, and lead his soldiers to London. 


THE BATTLE OF TRAFALGAR 
After the painting by W. C. Stanfeld. 















WILLIAM PITT, THE YOUNGER 

After the painting by John Hoppner. 
National Portrait Gallery, London. 





397 


Napoleon at W ar With Europe 

If this was indeed his intention, it became impossible 
of accomplishment after Lord Nelson’s victory oft 
Cape Trafalgar, over the combined French and 
Spanish fleets. Nelson received a mortal wound in 
the action, but he died with the knowledge that his 
country would henceforth remain in undisputed con¬ 
trol of the sea. “England,” said William Pitt, “has 
saved herself by her own energy, and will, I trust 
save Europe by her example.” 

Meanwhile, Pitt had succeeded in forming still 
another coalition against France and Napoleon. 
Great Britain, Austria, Russia, and Sweden were the 
four allied powers. Before they could strike a blow, 
Napoleon suddenly broke up his camp at Boulogne, 
moved swiftly into Germany, captured an entire 
Austrian army at Ulm, and entered Vienna. These 
successes were followed by the celebrated battle of 
Austerlitz, a masterpiece of strategy, at which Napo¬ 
leon with inferior numbers shattered the Austro- 
Russian forces. With his capital lost, his territory 
occupied, his armies destroyed, the Hapsburg mon¬ 
arch once more consented to an ignominious peace. 
The Venetian lands, which Austria acquired by the 
Treaty of Campo Formio, were now added to Napo¬ 
leon’s kingdom of Italy. 

Prussia was next to feel the mailed fist of Napo¬ 
leon. Relying upon the help of Saxony and Russia, 
she attempted to stay his victorious progress, only to 
suffer the loss of two armies in the double battle of 
Jena. Napoleon soon entered Berlin in triumph. 
Russia still remained formidable, until a bad defeat 
at Friedland induced the tsar, Alexander I, to make 
overtures for peace. 

The two emperors met at Tilsit on the Niemen 


398 Revolutionary and Napoleonic Era 

1 

River, near the frontier between Prussia and Russia, 
and concluded a bargain for the partition of Europe. 
The tsar agreed to throw over his allies and allow 
Napoleon a free hand in the West. Napoleon per¬ 
mitted the tsar to seize Finland from Sweden and 
promised French aid in expelling the Turks from 
Europe. When, however, the tsar asked for the 
Turkish capital, Napoleon exclaimed, “Constanti¬ 
nople! Never! That would be the mastery of the 
world.” 

No sovereign in modern times was ever so power¬ 
ful as Napoleon after Tilsit. If he had failed on the 
sea, he had won complete success on the land, and 
the triumphs of Ulm, of Austerlitz, of Jena, and of 
Friedland hid from view the disaster of Trafalgar. 
Napoleon’s victories are explained only in part by 
his mastery of the art of war. The emperor inherited 
the splendid citizen-soldiery of the revolutionary 
era, a whole nation under arms and filled with the 
idea of carrying “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity” 
throughout Europe. The hired troops of the absolute 
monarchies, on the contrary, had little enthusiasm for 
their cause. Slight wonder that in conflict with them 
Napoleon’s legions always gained the day. 

Napoleon's Reorganization of Europe 

Napoleon at the zenith of his power ruled directly 
over a large part of western Europe. Even before 
the Peace of Tilsit he had added Genoa (the Ligu¬ 
rian Republic) and Piedmont to France and had con¬ 
verted Holland (the former Batavian Republic) in¬ 
to an independent kingdom. Holland subsequently 
became a part of the French Empire. After Tilsit he 
annexed the German coast as far as Denmark, what 

































































399 


Napoleon’s Reorganization of Europe 

remained of the States of the Church, including 
Rome, and the Illyrian provinces east of Italy. 
Imperial France touched the Baltic on the north, 
and on the south faced the Adriatic. 

Beyond the empire stood a belt of dependencies. 
Northern Italy, including the former Cisalpine 
Republic and the ancient possessions of Venice, 
formed a separate kingdom, held by Napoleon him¬ 
self and administered by his stepson, Eugene Beau- 
harnais. His brother Joseph governed the kingdom 
of Naples in central and southern Italy. Switzerland, 
enlarged by six new cantons added to the thirteen 
old cantons, became a vassal republic, which Napo¬ 
leon ruled with the title of Mediator. The sections 
of Polish territory seized by Prussia and Austria in 
the second and third partitions, went to form the 
Grand Duchy of Warsaw* not, however, under a 
Polish ruler, but under Napoleon’s new ally, the king 
of Saxony. “Roll up the map of Europe,” William 
Pitt had cried, when he heard the news of Austerlitz, 
“it will not be wanted these ten years.” 

Napoleon’s power in central Europe rested upon 
the Confederation of the Rhine. This organization 
included Bavaria, Baden, and Wurtemberg, and in 
its final form all the German states except Austria 
and Prussia. As sovereign of the league, under the 
title of Protector, Napoleon disposed of its military 
forces and conducted its foreign relations. 

The formation of the Confederation of the Rhine 
gave the death-blow to the Holy Roman Empire. 
That venerable institution, which went back to Otto 
the Great and Charlemagne, had become little more 
than a name, an empty form, a shadow without sub¬ 
stance. When Napoleon declared that he would 


400 Revolutionary and Napoleonic Era 

recognize it no longer, the Hapsburg ruler laid down 
the crown and contented himself with the title of 
emperor of Austria. 

Many other European states not actually depend¬ 
ent on Napoleon were allied with him. They in¬ 
cluded Spain, which subsequently became a depend¬ 
ency, Denmark, Norway, the kingdom of Prussia, 
now reduced to about a half of its former size, and 
the weakened Austrian Empire. But Great Britain, 
mistress of the seas, still held out against the master 
of the Continent. 

The Continental System 

The failure of Napoleon’s Egyptian expedition 
prevented him from striking at Great Britain through 
her possessions in the East. His hope of invading 
her vanished at Trafalgar. His efforts to destroy 
her commerce by sending out innumerable privateers 
to prey upon it were foiled when British merchant¬ 
men sailed in convoys under the protection of ships 
of war. One alternative remained. If British manu¬ 
facturers could be deprived of their Continental mar¬ 
kets and British ship-owners and sailors of their 
carrying trade, it might be possible to compel the 
“nation of shop-keepers” to make peace with him on 
his own terms. 

Napoleon’s successes on land enabled him to devise 
a scheme for the strangulation of Great Britain. By 
two decrees issued at Berlin and Milan he placed 
that country under a commercial interdict. British 
ships and goods were to be excluded from France and 
her dependencies, while neutral vessels sailing from 
any British port were to be seized by French war¬ 
ships or privateers. 


The Continental System 401 

Napoleon endeavored to enforce these decrees in 
the French Empire, the Italian kingdom, the Con¬ 
federation of the Rhine, and the Grand Duchy of 
Warsaw. Russia and Prussia agreed to enforce them 
by the terms of the Peace of Tilsit. At one time or 
another all the states of Europe, except Great 
Britain and Turkey, came into the Continental 
System. 

The British government replied to the Berlin and 
Milan decrees by various Orders in Council, which 
forbade neutral ships from trading with France, her 
dependencies, or her allies, under penalty of capture. 
As Napoleon sought to exclude Great Britain from 
Continental markets, so that country sought to shut 
out Napoleon from maritime commerce. The sea- 
power of Great Britain enabled her to blockade the 
Continent with some degree of effectiveness. 

Napoleon, on the other hand, could not make the 
Continental System effective. British merchants 
always managed to smuggle large quantities of goods 
into the European countries. Some commodities 
which the French absolutely required, such as 
woolens, had to be admitted into France under special 
license. Napoleon clad his own armies in British 
cloth, and his soldiers marched in British shoes. 
Though Great Britain suffered acutely from the 
emperor’s interference with her trade, the Continental 
nations, deprived of needed manufactures and colo¬ 
nial wares, suffered still more. The result was to 
excite great bitterness against Napoleon. Neverthe¬ 
less, Ire persisted in the attempt to humble his only 
rival by this economic warfare; as we shall now see, 
he staked his empire on the success of the Continental 
System. 


402 Revolutionary and Napoleonic Era 

Revolt of the Nations, 1808-1814 

Napoleon hitherto had been fighting kings, not 
nations; and he had been uniformly victorious. A 
change came after Tilsit. The emperor’s treatment 
of the conquered peoples aroused the utmost hatred 
for him. They saw their sons dragged away by the 
conscription to fight and die in his armies; they paid 
excessive war taxes; above all, they had to endure the 
high prices resulting from the Continental System. 
The time was near at hand when these burdens could 
no longer be borne.. Henceforth our chief interest is 
with the various nations which one after another rose 
against their common oppressor. France in arms 
made Napoleon; Europe in arms overthrew him. 

The little kingdom of Portugal had been linked to 
Great Britain by close commercial ties for more than 
a century. When the Portuguese refused to close 
theii ports to British ships, as Napoleon demanded, 
he sent an army into the country, seized Lisbon, and 
drove the royal family to Brazil. Napoleon then 
proceeded to deprive his friend and ally, Ferdinand 
VII, of the Spanish crown and gave it to his brother 
Joseph. These high-handed acts enabled the emperor 
to extend the Continental System over the Iberian 
Peninsula. V hat he gained there was more than 
offset elsewhere. As soon as the Portuguese govern¬ 
ment removed to Brazil, it opened that country to 
British trade, and after the Spanish monarchy fell, 
its colonies revolted from the mother country and 
admitted British goods. Napoleon thus unwittingly 

created lucrative markets in Latin America for his 
rival. 

The Portuguese and Spaniards declined to accept 


Revolt of the Nations 


403 


their French overlords and everywhere rose in revolt. 
Great Britain took a lively interest in the situation 
and sent an army commanded by Sir Arthur Welles¬ 
ley, better known by his subsequent title of duke of 
Wellington, to help the insurgents. The French were 
soon driven out of Portugal, nor could they maintain 
themselves securely in Spain. The Peninsular War, 
as it is called, dragged on for years. 

Encouraged by the Spanish resistance, Austria 
tried to throw off the Napoleonic yoke. The effort 
proved to be premature, though Austria, fighting 
this time alone, gave Napoleon far more trouble than 
when previously she had the help of allies. The 
French again occupied Vienna and won the hard 
battle of Wagram. The peace which followed cost 
the Hapsburg ruler additional territory and a heavy 
indemnity. It also cost him his daughter Maria 
Louisa, whose hand Napoleon demanded in mar¬ 
riage after divorcing Josephine. When Maria Louisa 
presented the emperor with a son and heir, the so- 
called “king of Rome,” it must have seemed to him 
that his dynasty was at length firmly fixed on the 
French throne. 

Europe, except in Spain and on the seas, now 
enjoyed peace for two years. It was a brief breath- 
ing-spell, while Napoleon made ready for a new 
and much more terrible contest. Until now he had 
induced Tsar Alexander to adhere to the Continental 
System, which pressed with special severity upon 
Russia, an agricultural country needing large imports 
of British manufactures. The tsar at length decided 
to break his shackles and renew trade relations 
between Russia and Great Britain. This decision left 
Napoleon no choice but to go to war with him, if the 


404 Revolutionary and Napoleonic Era 

Continental System was to be preserved. Rather 
than give up hope of humbling Great Britain, the 
emperor, against the advice of his wisest counselors, 
threw down the gage of battle. 

More than half a million men formed the Grand 
Army with which Napoleon began the invasion of 
Russia. About one-third of the soldiers were 
French; the rest were Germans, Italians, Poles, and 
other subjects of the empire. All western Europe 
had banded together under the leadership of one man 
to overthrow the only great state remaining un¬ 
conquered on the Continent. The Russians offered 
at first little resistance, and the Grand Army reached 
the river Borodino before they turned at bay. A 
murderous conflict followed; the French won; and 
eight days later Napoleon entered Moscow. 

But to occupy Moscow was not to conquer Russia. 
The French did not dare follow their enemy farther 
into the wilderness, nor could they remain for the 
winter in Moscow, owing to the scarcity of food for 
men and horses. The Russian peasants burned their 
grain and fodder rather than supply the French. 
Moreover, a great fire, perhaps kindled by the Rus¬ 
sians themselves, had destroyed much of the city just 
as the French entered it. Napoleon lingered for a 
month among the ruins of Moscow in the belief that 
Alexander would open negotiations for peace. But 
no message came from the tsar, and at last the em¬ 
peror gave orders for the retreat. A southerly route, 
which the army attempted to follow, was blocked, 
and the troops had to return by the way they had 
come, through a country eaten bare of supplies. 
Famine, cold, desertions, and the incessant raids of 
the Cossacks thinned their ranks; and at last only a 


Revolt of the Nations 405 

few thousand broken fugitives recrossed the Niemen 
to safety. The Grand Army had ceased to exist. 

This disaster, unparalleled in military annals, 
thrilled Prussia with hopes of freedom. Thanks to 
the labors of Baron von Stein and other statesmen, 
it was a new Prussia which confronted Napoleon! 
Serfdom had been declared illegal; all occupations 
and professions had been opened to noble, com¬ 
moner, and peasant alike; a state system of both ele¬ 
mentary and secondary education had been estab¬ 
lished; and the army had been reorganized on the 
basis of military service for all classes. These re¬ 
forms gave to Prussia many of the advantages of the 
French Revolution and aroused a patriotic spirit 
which united the entire nation in a common love of 
country. Prussia now joined forces with Russia and 
began the War of Liberation. 

Yet so vast were Napoleon’s resources that he was 
soon able to recruit a new army and take the offensive 
in Germany. He gained fresh victories, but could 
not follow them up because of the lack of cavalry. 
Austria then threw in her lot with the Allies. Out¬ 
numbered and outmaneuvered, Napoleon fell back 
on Leipzig, and there in a three-days’ “Battle of the 
Nations” suffered a sanguinary defeat. All Germany 
now turned against him, and he withdrew his shat¬ 
tered troops across the Rhine. 

The Allies would have made peace with Napo¬ 
leon, had he been willing to give up his claims to the 
overlordship of Europe. They offered him the 
Rhine, the Alps, the Pyrenees, and the Atlantic as 
the French boundaries, but he refused to accept the 
territorial limits that would have satisfied the ambi¬ 
tions of Louis XIV. Napoleon’s campaigns during 


406 Revolutionary and Napoleonic Era 

the early months of 1814 against three armies, each 
one larger than his own, are justly celebrated; they 
postponed but did not prevent his overthrow. After 
Paris surrendered, the emperor gave up the useless 
struggle and signed an act of abdication renouncing 
for himself and for his heirs the thrones of France 
and Italy. 

Downfall of Napoleon, 1814-1815 

The Allies treated Napoleon with marked con¬ 
sideration. They allowed him to retain the title of 
emperor and assigned him the island of Elba as a 
possession. He spent ten months in this tiny princi¬ 
pality and ruled it with all his accustomed energy, 
meanwhile keeping a watchful eye upon the course 
of events in France. 

Suddenly Europe heard with amazement that 
Napoleon had returned to France and that the count 
of Provence, now Louis XVIII, was once more an 
exile. The enthusiastic welcome which greeted the 
emperor, as he advanced to Paris with only a small 
bodyguard, bore witness at once to the magnetism 
of his personality and to the unpopularity of the 
Bourbons. In a manifesto to the French people he 
declared that henceforth he would renounce war and 
conquest and would govern as a constitutional 
sovereign. The Allies, however, refused to accept the 
restoration of one whom they described as the “enemy 
and destroyer of the world’s peace.” The four great 
powers, Great Britain, Austria, Prussia, and Russia, 
proclaimed Napoleon an outlaw and set their armies 
in motion toward France. 

The allied armies lay in two groups behind the 
Sambre River. A mixed force of British, Belgians, 
Dutch, and Germans, under the duke of Wellington, 


407 


Downfall of Napoleon 


covered Brussels, and the Prussians, under Bliicher, 
held a position farther east. Napoleon hoped to over¬ 
come them separately before they could concentrate 
their overwhelming numbers. He did beat Blucher 
at Ligny, compelling the Prussian general to retreat 
northward to Warve. Blucher’s defeat made it neces¬ 
sary for Wellington to fall back on a strong defensive 
position near Waterloo, twelve miles south of Brus¬ 
sels. Here, all through a hot Sunday in June, Napo¬ 
leon hurled his infantry and cavalry in fierce but 
ineffectual attacks against the “Iron Duke’s” lines. 
The timely arrival of the Prussians from Wavre— 
Napoleon supposed that they had retreated toward 
Namur—compelled the French to fight a double 
battle; their situation soon became desperate; and 
even a last charge of the Old Guard failed to restore 
the day. Repulse soon turned into a rout, and Napo¬ 
leon’s splendid army broke up into a mob of fugitives. 
The emperor himself escaped with difficulty to Paris. 

Napoleon again abdicated and to avoid the Prus¬ 
sians (who had orders to take him dead or alive) 
threw himself upon the generosity of the British 
Government. Then followed exile to the desolate 
rock of St. Helena, where the fallen emperor lived 
for six years, without wife or child, but surrounded 
by a few intimate friends to whom he dictated his 
memoirs. After his death, at the early age of fifty- 
two, France forgot the sufferings he had caused her 
and remembered only his glory. Poets, painters, and 
singers created out of the “Little Corporal” a purely 
legendary figure. The world-despot appeared as the 
heir of the Revolution, a crusader for liberty, a foe 
of tyrants; and in this guise he found his way irre¬ 
sistibly to the hearts of the French people. 




408 Revolutionary and Napoleonic Era 

After Napoleon’s first abdication in 1814 the vic¬ 
torious Allies concluded with France a peace which 
stripped her of all her conquests. After the emperor’s 
second abdication in 1815 the allied powers deemed 
it necessary to impose still more humiliating con¬ 
ditions of peace. Though France was not dismem¬ 
bered, she was reduced to substantially her old 
boundaries before the Revolution. Furthermore, 
she had to restore all the works of art which Napo¬ 
leon had pilfered from other countries, to pay an 
indemnity of seven hundred million francs, and for 
five years to support a foreign army in her chief 
fortresses. It is noteworthy, however, that the desire 
of Prussia for the French provinces of Alsace and 
Lorraine was not at this time gratified. 

“Liberty, Equality, Fraternity” 

The French Revolution differed sharply from 
previous revolutionary movements. The Puritan 
Revolution and the “Glorious Revolution” in Eng¬ 
land were carried out by men of the upper and 
middle classes, who wished to limit the royal power 
and establish the supremacy of Parliament. Even 
the American Revolution was guided by conservative 
statesmen, at least as solicitous for the rights of 
property as for the rights of man. The French 
Revolution also began mainly as a middle-class 
movement, but it soon reached the lower classes. 
Their principles found expression in the famous 
motto, “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity.” 

“Liberty” meant the recognition of popular sover¬ 
eignty. Government was to be no longer the privilege 
of a divine-right ruler, however benevolent or 
“enlightened”; henceforth, it was to be conducted 


“Liberty, Equality, Fraternity” 409 

constitutionally in accordance with the will of the 
people. Since the first constitution (that of 1791) 
the French have often changed their form of govern¬ 
ment, but they have always had a written constitution. 
Napoleon’s plebiscites show that he paid at least lip 
homage to the principle of popular sovereignty, and 
it is certain that during both the consulate and the 
empire he enjoyed the support of the great majority 
of Frenchmen. On the other hand, he did not respect 
all the rights of man” which the revolutionists had 
proclaimed with such enthusiasm. Freedom of wor- 
ship prevailed under Napoleon, but the emperor 
allowed neither free speech nor a free press. 

Equality” meant the abolition of privilege. The 
Revolution made all citizens equal before the law. 
It opened to every one the positions in the civil serv¬ 
ice, the Church, and the army. It abolished serfdom 
and manorial dues, thus destroying the last vestiges 
of feudalism. It suppressed the guilds, thus releas¬ 
ing industry from medieval shackles. It canceled all 
exemptions from taxation and substituted a new fiscal 
system which taxed men according to their means. 
Most Frenchmen were content to accept Napoleon’s 
rule largely because he retained and extended these 
achievements of the Revolution. 

“Fraternity” meant a new consciousness of human 
brotherhood. The revolutionists set out to make 
France a better place for every one to live in. This 
fraternal feeling inspired all ranks and classes of the 
people. It led to a great outburst of patriotic and 
national sentiment, which enabled the French, single- 
handed, to withstand Europe in arms. 

The principles of 1789 were not confined to France. 
The revolutionary and Napoleonic soldiers passed 


4 IQ Revolutionary and Napoleonic Era 

from land to land, bringing in their train the over¬ 
throw of the Old Regime. The effect was profound 
in the Netherlands, in western Germany, and in 
northern Italy, countries where the masses of the peo¬ 
ple had grievances and aspirations like those of the 
French. During the nineteenth century the revolu¬ 
tionary spirit permeated other European countries, 
resulting everywhere in a demand for the abolition of 
the established privileges of wealth, birth, and social 
position. Such has been the service of France as a 
liberator. 


I 


CHAPTER XII 

THE DEMOCRATIC MOVEMENT IN EUROPE, 1815-1848 

Modern Democracy 

The idea of democracy, so emphasized by the 
American and French revolutions, has been a potent 
influence in molding modern history. What is 
democracy? The word comes from the Greek and 
means popular rule—“government of the people, by 
the people, and for the people.” Democracy is thus 
distinguished from autocracy, the rule of one, and 
from aristocracy or oligarchy, the rule of a few. 

Ancient democracy was exclusive. All the people 
did not rule, even in the most democratic of Greek 
cities. Slaves, a very considerable element of the 
population, enjoyed no political rights, while freed- 
men and foreigners were seldom allowed to take part 
in public affairs. A democratic state at the present 
time does not recognize any slave class, freely admits 
foreigners to citizenship, and grants the suffrage to 
all native-born and naturalized men, irrespective of 
birth, property, or social condition. The recent 
extension of the suffrage to women in several progres¬ 
sive countries marks the final step in broadening the 
conception of “the people” to include practically all 
adult citizens. 

As a working system of government, democracy 
implies the sway of majorities. It is usually impos¬ 
sible to wait until all the people are of one mind 
regarding proposed measures or policies. A unani- 

411 


4 J 2 Democratic Movement in Europe 

mous or nearly unanimous decision is best, of course; 
failing that, we must “count heads” and see which 
side has the more adherents. A democratic govern¬ 
ment which did not enforce the will of the majority 
would be a contradiction in terms. How far should 
the sway of a majority go? If it goes so far as to 
suppress free opinion, free speech, and free discussion 
in a public press, then there is little to choose between 
the absolutism of a democracy and the absolutism of 
an autocracy. A majority can be as tyrannical as 
any divine-right monarch. The danger of abusing 
majority rule makes it necessary to safeguard the 
rights of minorities, whether great or small. After a 
decision has been reached upon any question, the 
minority should still be entitled to convert (if it can) 
the majority to its views by free and open debate. In 
this way democratic government comes to rest upon 
common consent, upon the willing cooperation of all 
the citizens. 

Democracy in antiquity was direct, while that of 
to-day is representative. Every citizen of Athens or 
Rome had a right to appear and vote in the popular 
assembly. With the growth of modern states this 
form of government became impossible. The popu¬ 
lation was too large, the distances were too great, for 
all the citizens to meet in public gatherings. Voters 
now simply choose some one to represent them in a 
parliament or congress. 

The representative system, though not unknown to 
the Greeks and Romans, was little used by them. It 
developed during the Middle Ages, when such coun¬ 
tries as Denmark, Sweden, the Netherlands, France, 
and England established legislative bodies represent¬ 
ing the three “estates” of clergy, nobility, and com- 


Modern Democracy 


moners. Most of these medieval legislatures after¬ 
wards disappeared or sank into insignificance, but 
the English Parliament continued to lead a vigorous 
existence. It thus furnished a model for imitation, 
first by the American colonies, then by revolutionary 
France, and during the past hundred years by nearly 
all Europe. 

We have already learned how the builders of the 
United States set up what may be called a presidential 
system. They provided for a president elected for 
a fixed term, gave him executive authority, and 
sharply separated his functions from those of the 
legislature. In Great Britain, on the other hand, 
a so-called cabinet system arose during the eighteenth 
century, by which a cabinet, or body of ministers, 
executes the laws subject to the oversight and control 
of the legislature. This system has now been ex¬ 
tended by Great Britain to her self-governing Do¬ 
minions in South Africa, Australasia, and Canada. 
It has also been adopted by most Continental states. 
Both presidential and cabinet systems are democratic. 


The differences between them relate simply to the 
machinery by which the people rule. 

Democracy does not necessarily imply a republi¬ 
can form of government. The establishment of the 


United States did, indeed, lead almost immediately 
to the formation of the first French Republic, and 
the examples thus set were soon followed by the 
Spanish-American colonies after their separation 
from the mother country. On the other hand, Great 
Britain, Italy, and certain other European states have 
succeeded in developing governments which, though 
monarchical in form, are democratic in substance. 
The king still reigns by hereditary succession, but he 


4*4 Democratic Movement in Europe 

does not rule. The popularly elected president of a 
republic often has more power than one of these 
democratic monarchs. 

Modern democracy is constitutional in form. 
There is generally a written constitution, of a more 
or less liberal type, to guarantee the rights of the 
people. The first document of this sort for any 
country was the Union of Utrecht (1579), by which 
the northern provinces of the Netherlands bound 
themselves together, “as if they were one province/’ 
to maintain their liberties “with life-blood and 
goods” against Spain. The second was the Crom¬ 
wellian Instrument of Government (1653). The 
third was the Constitution of the United States, 
framed in 1787. The fourth was the French constitu¬ 
tion which went into effect in 1791. All these docu¬ 
ments, it should be noticed, were of revolutionary 
origin; they testified to the success of armed rebellion 
against the legal government. The same thing will be 
found true of many other constitutions secured by 
European peoples during the nineteenth century. 

The Congress of Vienna 

The close of the revolutionary and Napoleonic era 
found Europe in confusion. The French Revolu¬ 
tion had destroyed the Old Regime in France, and 
Napoleon Bonaparte had given new rulers or new 
boundaries to almost every Continental state. While 
the fallen emperor was still at Elba, a great interna¬ 
tional congress met at Vienna in September, 1814, 
to restore the old dynasties and remake the European 
map. The powers represented were Great Britain, 
Austria, Prussia, Russia, Sweden, Portugal, Spain, 
and France. 


Restoration of the Dynasties 



The congress formed a brilliant assemblage of em¬ 
perors, kings, princes of every rank, and titled diplo¬ 
mats. A single drawing room sometimes held Alex¬ 
ander I, tsar of Russia; Francis I, emperor of Aus¬ 
tria; Frederick William III, king of Prussia; the 
duke of Wellington, the German patriot Stein, the 
Austrian minister Metternich, and the French repre¬ 
sentative Talleyrand. The final decision as to all 
questions obviously lay with the four powers whose 
alliance had overthrown Napoleon, until Talley¬ 
rand’s skillful management secured the admission of 
France to their councils as a fifth great power. When 
the wheels of diplomacy had been well oiled by 
banquets, balls, and other festivities, the monarchs 
and their advisers undertook the reconstruction of 
Europe. 

Only by courtesy could the meeting at Vienna be 
called a congress. As a matter of fact, it never held 
open sessions with general debates. All the work 
was done privately by committees of plenipotentia¬ 
ries, who signed treaties between the various states. 
These treaties were then brought together in a single 
document called the Final Act of the Congress of 
Vienna (June, 1815). 

Restoration of the Dynasties 

The aristocrats who assembled at Vienna were op¬ 
posed, naturally enough, to all the democratic or lib¬ 
eral sentiments which had been awakened in Europe 
since 1789. The French Revolution appeared to 
them as merely a revolt against authority, a revolt 
which had overturned the social order, destroyed 
property, sacrificed countless human lives, and intro¬ 
duced confusion everywhere. Blind to the true sig- 


4 j 6 Democratic Movement in Europe 

nificance of the demand for liberty and equality, they 
sought to bring back the Old Regime of absolutism, 
privilege, and divine right. Their ideal was Europe 
before 1789. 

The first business at Vienna was therefore the re¬ 
storation of the old dynasties. The congress asserted 
the right of European monarchs to govern their 
former subjects, irrespective of the latter’s wishes or 
of the claims of the rulers whom Napoleon had 
established. Talleyrand dignified this principle 
under the name of “legitimacy.” 

Louis XVIII, who now went back to France, was 
an old gentleman of sixty, and so fat and gouty that 
he could not sit a horse. This cool, cautious Bour¬ 
bon wanted to enjoy his power in peace; like Charles 
II of England, he had no desire to set out on his 
travels again. He realized that to most Frenchmen 
absolutism had become intolerable and that the main 
results of the revolutionary and Napoleonic era must 
be preserved. Accordingly, Louis XVIII retained 
such institutions as the Code, the Concordat, the 
Bank of France, and the imperial nobility, and re¬ 
newed a charter or constitution, which he had 
granted in 1814. It guaranteed freedom of the press, 
religious toleration, and the inviolability of sales of 
land made during the Revolution. The restoration 
of the Bourbon monarchy did not mean the restora¬ 
tion of the Old Regime in France. 

Ferdinand VII, another king whom Napoleon had 
dethroned, went back to Spain. This Spanish Bour¬ 
bon had no sooner recovered his crown than he began 
to sweep away all traces of revolutionary ideas and 
institutions introduced by the French. A constitu¬ 
tion, modeled upon that of France, which the Span- 



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PRINCE METTERNICH 

After the painting by Sir Thomas Lawrence. 

In the possession of Prince Richard Metternich-Winneburg. 





4*7 


Territorial Readjustments 

lards had framed in 1812, was suppressed, because it 
denied divine right and asserted the sovereignty of 
the people. The old privileges of the clergy and 
nobility were reaffirmed. The censorship of books 
and newspapers, the prohibition of public meetings, 
and the imprisonment or banishment of all those 
suspected of liberal opinions showed clearly the re- 
actionary character of the new government. 

Still other dispossessed monarchs profited by the 
principle of legitimacy.” The king of Sardinia re¬ 
gained Nice, Savoy, and Piedmont on the mainland, 
together with the former republic of Genoa as an 
additional protection against France. “Republics 
are no longer fashionable,” said the tsar to a Genoese 
deputation which had objected to this arbitrary ar¬ 
rangement. Sicily and Naples were again combined 
to form the kingdom of the Two Sicilies under a 
Bourbon ruler. The pope, whom Napoleon had de¬ 
prived of temporal sovereignty, recovered the States 
of the Church. All these restored princes governed 
without constitutions or parliaments. They used their 
absolute power to get rid of every trace of the revolu¬ 
tionary era, even uprooting French plants in the bo¬ 
tanical gardens and abolishing vaccination and gas 
street lamps as nefarious French innovations. The 
restorations in Italy also spelled reaction. 

« 

Territorial Readjustments 

As we have already learned, the fraternal or pa¬ 
triotic feelings so deeply stirred during the revolu¬ 
tionary and Napoleonic era put renewed emphasis 
on the rights of nationalities. Patriots in one country 
after another boldly declared that no nation, how¬ 
ever small or weak, should be governed by foreign- 


4 j 8 Democratic Movement in Europe 

ers. Every nation, on the contrary, ought to be free 
to choose its own form of government and manage 
its own affairs. To such “submerged nationalities” 
as the Belgians, Bohemians, Poles, and Magyars this 
principle held out the hope of independence; to the 
Italians and the Germans it held out the hope of unifi¬ 
cation. Like the “enlightened despots/' however, the 
rulers and diplomats at Vienna willfully disregarded 
all national aspirations. They treated the European 
peoples as so many pawns in the game of diplomacy. 

In general, the territorial readjustments made by 
the congress were intended to compensate the great 
powers for their exertions against Napoleon. Land 
hunger thus influenced the Vienna settlement, as it 
had influenced the earlier treaties of Utrecht and 
Westphalia. The principle of “compensations,” 
however, had to be modified by the assumed necessity 
of strengthening the neighbors of France against 
future aggression on the part of that country. The 
total result was a new map of Europe. 

The oldest and most successful of Napoleon’s 
enemies, Great Britain, did not desire Continental 
territories. She received colonial possessions as pay¬ 
ment, including Helgoland in the North Sea and 
Malta and the Ionian Islands in the Mediterranean. 
Great Britain also retained the former Dutch colo¬ 
nies of Ceylon, Cape Colony, and part of Guiana, 

which had been appiopriated during the Napoleonic 
wars. 

A new state arose across the Channel. In order 
to compensate the Dutch for the loss of their posses¬ 
sions oveiseas and at the same time to set up a strong 
bulwark against France, the congress united the Aus¬ 
trian Netherlands—modern Belgium—with Hoi- 






















































Territorial Readjustments 419 

land. The kingdom of the Netherlands, as thus estab¬ 
lished, was under the rule of the house of Orange. 
This arbitrary union of Belgians and Dutch soon led 
to acute friction between the two peoples. 

As compensation for the cession of the Austrian 
Netherlands, Austria secured Lombardy and Venetia, 
the two richest provinces in Italy. She also re¬ 
ceived the Illyrian lands along the Adriatic coast, 
part of Poland (Galicia), and all the other territory 
taken from her by Napoleon. Austria was now a 
state geographically compact, centering round the 
middle Danube and controlling North Italy and the 
northern Adriatic. 

The Prussian kingdom, whose limits had been so 
reduced by Napoleon, recovered part of Poland 
(Posen), took over from Sweden what remained of 
western Pomerania, and absorbed about half of Sax¬ 
ony, a state which had been one of Napoleon’s allies. 
Prussia also annexed much additional territory on 
the lower Rhine. In spite of these territorial acqui¬ 
sitions, Prussia remained almost as unformed as in 
the eighteenth century, with her dominions scattered 
throughout Germany. 

Another great power widened its boundaries at 
this time. Russia kept Finland, taken from Sweden 
in 1809, an d Bessarabia, wrested from Turkey in 
1812. In addition, Russia obtained the lion’s share 
of Napoleon’s Grand Duchy of Warsaw. Tsar 
Alexander proceeded to set up a kingdom of Poland, 
with himself as king. 

For the cession of western Pomerania to Prussia 
and of Finland to Russia, Sweden found compensa¬ 
tion in taking Norway from Denmark. The only 
excuse for this action was the former alliance of the 


420 Democratic Movement in Europe 

Danes with Napoleon, an alliance which had been 
practically forced upon them. The Norwegians 
themselves resented the new arrangement, preferring 
a Danish to a Swedish ruler. Though compelled to 
submit, they succeeded in keeping their own govern¬ 
ment, constitution, and laws. Their union with the 
Swedes lasted just ninety years. 

The Swiss Confederation, or Switzerland, whose 
independence had been recognized at the Peace of 
Westphalia, received its final form at the Congress 
of Vienna. Three new cantons were added to the 
nineteen in existence before 1815. The great powers 
also signed a treaty promising never to declare war 
against Switzerland or to send troops across the Swiss 
borders. The little Alpine republic became in this 
way a neutral buffer state in the heart of Europe. 

The settlement of Vienna left Italy a mosaic of 
nine states. Of these, Sardinia formed an indepen¬ 
dent kingdom. Lombardy and Venetia were Aus¬ 
trian provinces. Parma, Modena, Tuscany, and 
Lucca were duchies, all but the last under rulers be¬ 
longing to the Hapsburg family. Austrian influence 
also prevailed in the States of the Church and in the 
Two Sicilies. Thus Austria, a foreign power, fixed 
its grip upon the Italian peninsula. Italy, in Met- 
ternich’s contemptuous phrase, was only “a geograph¬ 
ical expression.” 

Germany after the settlement of Vienna included 
thirty-nine states and free cities, of which the most 
extensive were the Austrian Empire and the five 
kingdoms of Prussia, Bavaria, Saxony, Wiirtemberg, 
and Hanover. Stein and his fellow-patriots wished 
to bring them all into a strongly knit union. This 
proposal encountered the opposition of Metternich, 


The Concert of Eu 


421 


rope 

who feared that a united Germany would not serve 
Austrian interests. Metternich found support among 
the German rulers themselves, not one of whom 
would surrender any particle of his authority. The 
outcome was the creation of the Germanic Con¬ 
federation, a loose association of sovereign princes 
with a Diet or assembly presided over by a represen¬ 
tative of the Austrian emperor. 

The Congress of Vienna may properly be charged 
with grave shortcomings. It rode rough-shod over 
popular rights and disappointed the hopes of Ger¬ 
mans, Italians, Norwegians, Poles, and Belgians for 
freedom. Its failure to satisfy either the democratic 
or national aspirations of Europe has left a heritage 
• of trouble even to our own day. The political history 
of the last hundred years is very largely concerned 
with the triumph of both democracy and national¬ 
ism, and the consequent changes of territory and 
government. What the Viennese map makers con¬ 
structed was not a lasting settlement of the difficult 
problems before them, but rather a new balance of 
power, cunningly contrived yet nevertheless unstable. 
There now remained, as in the eighteenth century, 
five great states: Great Britain and France in the 
west; Austria and Prussia competing in the center; 
and in the east Russia. No one of them was strong 
enough to dominate the others. Together they man¬ 
aged to preserve peace in Europe for the next forty 
years. 

“Metternichismus" and the Concert of Europe, 

1815-1830 

Austria, now the leading Continental state, con¬ 
sisted of more than a score of territories inhabited by 


422 Democratic Movement in Europe 

uncongenial Germans, Magyars, Slavs, Rumanians, 
and Italians. To keep them united under a single 
scepter, the Hapsburgs deliberately repressed all 
agitation for independence or self-government. The 
Hapsburgs felt it equally necessary to discourage 
every popular movement, which, starting in Italy or 
Germany, might spread like an infection to their own 
dominions. “My realm,” confessed the emperor 
Francis I, “is like a worm-eaten house; if a part of it 
is removed, one cannot tell how much will fall.” 
Force of circumstances thus placed Austria at the 
forefront of the reaction against democracy. 

The spirit of reactionary Austria seemed incarnate 
in Prince Clemens Metternich. He belonged to an 
old and distinguished family from the Rhinelands, . 
entered the diplomatic service of Austria, and during 
the Napoleonic era rose to be the chief representa¬ 
tive of the Hapsburg emperor at Paris. An aristo¬ 
crat to his finger-tips, polished, courtly, tactful, 
clever, this man soon became the real head of the 
Austrian government and the most influential diplo¬ 
mat in Europe. To the rule of Napoleon succeeded 
the rule of Metternich. 1 he German word Metter- 
nicliismus has been coined to express the ideas which 
he championed and the measures which he enforced. 

Metternich regarded absolutism and divine right 
as the pillars of stable government. Democracy, he 
declared, could only “change daylight into darkest 
night.” All demands for constitutions, parliaments, 
and representative institutions must consequently be 
opposed to the uttermost. In order to stamp out the 
“disease of liberalism,” let spies and secret police be 
multiplied, press and pulpit kept under gag-laws, the 
universities sharply watched for dangerous teach- 


423 


The Concert of Europe 

ings, and all agitators exiled, imprisoned, or 
executed. Such measures of repression seemed quite 
feasible at a time when the majority of European 
peoples were ignorant peasants, far removed from 
public life. Democratic ideas could only find fol¬ 
lowers among the workingmen of the cities and in 
the educated bourgeoisie, both very small and de¬ 
fenseless when confronted by the powerful forces at 
the disposal of governments. JVIetternich first 
established his system in Austria and then found in 
the Concert of Europe the means of extending it to 
other parts of the Continent. 

The states whose coalitions overthrew Napoleon 
became in 1815 the arbiters of Europe. Great Brit¬ 
ain, Austria, Prussia, and Russia renewed their alli¬ 
ance, in order to preserve the dynastic and territorial 
arrangements made by the Congress of Vienna. In 
1818 France under Louis XVIII was admitted into 
the sacred circle of the alliance. The French, dur¬ 
ing three years’ probation, had fulfilled the obliga¬ 
tions imposed upon them by the Allies after Water¬ 
loo and, as far as appearances went, had extinguished 
forever their revolutionary fires. These five great 
powers, as long as they worked in harmony, could 
enforce their will on all the smaller states. They 
formed, in effect, a European Concert. 

The agreements establishing the Concert pledged 
its members to the maintenance of “public peace, the 
tranquillity of states, the inviolability of possessions, 
and the faith of treaties.” High sounding words! 
Europe in 1815 was not ready for a genuine interna¬ 
tional league to safeguard the rights of each country/ 
whether big or little. The defects of the Concert 
were obvious. First, it did not extend to Turkey in 



424 Democratic Movement in Europe 


Europe, whose Christian inhabitants languished 
under the tyranny of the sultan. Second, it was dy¬ 
nastic rather than popular in character—a union of 
sovereigns instead of peoples. Of the five leading 
states, all but Great Britain were divine-right mon¬ 
archies. Third, it lacked effective machinery for 
reconciling the contrary interests, ambitions, and 
jealousies of the members. The Concert, in short, 
formed only a distant approach to the ideal of a con¬ 
federated Europe, of a commonwealth of nations. 

One of the clauses of the treaty of alliance between 
the powers had provided that they should hold con¬ 
gresses from time to time for consideration of the 
measures “most salutary for the repose and prosper¬ 
ity of nations and for the peace of Europe.” Four 
such congresses were convoked by Metternich, whose 
diplomatic genius turned them into agencies of re¬ 
action. At the Congress of Troppau in 1820 he even 
succeeded in inducing the sovereigns of Austria, 
Prussia, and Russia to sign a protocol, or declaration, 
formally outlawing all revolutions. According to 
the principle there announced, a state which under¬ 
went a revolutionary change of government was to 
be brought back, peacefully or by force, “into the 
bosom of the Great Alliance.” 

The Protocol of Troppau announced a doctrine 
new to international law. The European autocrats 
now boldly asserted their right, and even their duty, 
to intervene in the affairs of any country for the sup¬ 
pression of democratic or national movements. 
France did not sign this outrageous document. 
Neither did Great Britain. Her statesmen, mem¬ 
bers of a government which dated from the “Glori¬ 
ous Revolution” of 1688, had now begun to compre- 



I he Concert of Europe 425 

hend the real character of the Concert as directed by 
Metternich, and to see in it a deadly menace to the 
liberties of Europe. Undaunted by British protests, 
however, the three eastern powers prepared for 
armed intervention. 

1820 was a year of revolutions. A widespread up¬ 
rising in Spain against Ferdinand VII forced that 
tyrannical monarch to restore the constitution of 1812 
and to convene a liberal parliament. An insurrection 
in Portugal overthrew the regency which had gov¬ 
erned there since the removal of the royal family to 
Brazil during the Napoleonic era. John VI, then 
reigning in Brazil, returned to Portugal and prom¬ 
ised to rule as a constitutional sovereign. Encour¬ 
aged by these successes, the people of Naples (a part 
of the kingdom of the Two Sicilies) compelled their 
Bourbon prince to grant a constitution. 

Metternichismus did not long remain on the de¬ 
fensive. An Austrian army quickly occupied Naples 
and restored “order” and absolutism. In the reac¬ 
tion which followed the liberal leaders were hurried 
to the dungeon and the scaffold. Almost at the 
same time a revolt in the Sardinian kingdom (Pied¬ 
mont) collapsed under the pressure of eighty thous¬ 
and Austrian bayonets. Metternich felt well satis¬ 
fied with his work. “I see the dawn of a better day,” 

he wrote. “Heaven seems to will it that the world 
shall not be lost.” 

Armed intervention soon registered another tri¬ 
umph. The three eastern powers commissioned 
France to act as their agent to subdue the turbulent 
Spaniards. Great Britain protested vigorously 
against this action and asserted the right of every 
people to determine its own form of government. 



426 Democratic Movement in Europe 

Her protests were unheeded. French troops crossed 
the Pyrenees and put Ferdinand once more on his 
autocratic throne. The king then proceeded to 
inaugurate a reign of terror, exiling, imprisoning, 
and executing liberals by the thousands. It is a sorry 
chapter in Spanish history. 

The sovereigns were now ready to crusade against 
freedom in Spain's American colonies, which had re¬ 
volted against the mother land. Both Great Britain 
and the United States felt thoroughly alarmed at the 
prospect of European interference in the affairs of 
the New World. George Canning, the British for¬ 
eign minister, made it clear to the governments of 
France, Austria, Prussia, and Russia that, as long 
as Great Britain controlled the seas, no country other 
than Spain should acquire the colonies either by ces¬ 
sion or by conquest. Canning's policy received the 
emphatic support of President Monroe in his mes¬ 
sage to Congress (1823), m which he said: “We owe 
it, therefore, to candor, and to the amicable relations 
existing between the United States and those powers, 
to declare that we should consider any attempt on 
their part to extend their system to any portion of 
this hemisphere as dangerous to our peace and 
safety.” Shortly afterwards both the United States 
and Great Britain recognized the independence of 
the Spanish-American republics. A second breach 
in the European Concert opened when Russia, abso¬ 
lutist but orthodox, supported a rebellion of the 
Greeks against their Turkish oppressors. It re¬ 
mained, however, for another democratic revolution 
in France to deal the most effective blow against 
Metternich and all his works. 


France and the July Revolution” 427 

France and the “July Revolution,” 1830 

Though Louis XVIII called himself king “by the 
grace of God” and kept the white flag of the Bour¬ 
bon family, he ruled in fact as a constitutional mon¬ 
arch. The Charter of 1814 established a legislature 
of two houses, the upper a Chamber of Peers ap¬ 
pointed for life, the lower a Chamber of Deputies 
chosen for a term of years. A high property qualifi¬ 
cation for the suffrage restricted the right of voting 
for deputies to less than one hundred thousand per¬ 
sons out of a population of twenty-nine million. The 
mass of the citizens— bourgeoisie, workingmen, and 
peasants—could neither elect nor be elected to office. 
The French government thus remained far removed 
from democracy. 

As long as Louis XVIII lived, he kept some check 
upon the royalists, who wished to get back all their 
old wealth and privileged position. The accession 
of his brother, the count of Artois, under the title of 
Charles X, seated the reactionary elements firmly in 
the saddle. It was well said of Charles X that after 
long years of exile he had “learned nothing and for¬ 
gotten nothing. ’ A thorough believer in absolutism 
and divine right, the king tried to rule as though the 
Revolution had never taken place. His disregard 
of the constitution and arbitrary conduct soon pro¬ 
voked an uprising. 

Paris in July, 1830, as in July, 1789, was the storm- 
center of the revolutionary movement. Working¬ 
men and students raised barricades in the narrow 
streets and defied the government. After three days of 
fighting against none-too-loyal troops, the revolu¬ 
tionists gained control of the capital. Charles X fled 





428 Democratic Movement in Europe 


to England, and the tricolor once more flew to the 
breeze in France. 

Those who carried through the uprising in Paris 
wanted a republic, but they found little support 
among the liberal bourgeoisie. Men of this class 
feared that a republican France would soon be at war 
with monarchical Europe. Largely influenced by 
the aged Lafayette, the Republicans agreed to accept 
another king, in the person of Louis Philippe, duke 
of Orleans. He took the crown now offered to him 
by the Chamber of Deputies, at the same time prom¬ 
ising to respect the constitution and the liberties of 
Frenchmen. 


Bourbon Dynasty 


Henry IV (1589-1610) 
Louis XIII (1610-1643) 


Louis XIV (1643-1715) Philippe, duke of Orleans 

Louis XV (1715-1774) 
great-grandson of Louis XIV 


Louis the Dauphin (d. 1765) 

Louis XVI Louis XVIII 
(1774-1792) (1814-1824) 

count of 
Provence 
“Louis XVII” (d. 1795) 


Louis Philippe (executed 1793) 


Charles X Louis Philippe (1830-1848) 
(1824-1830) great-great-great-grandson 
count of of Philippe 

Artois 


The new sovereign belonged to the younger, or 
Orleans, branch of the Bourbon family. He had 
participated in the events of 1789, had joined the 
Jacobin Club, had fought in revolutionary battles, 
and during a visit to the United States had become 
acquainted with democratic ideals and principles. 
To this “Citizen King,” who reigned “by the grace 
of God and by the will of the people,” France now 
gave her allegiance. 










The “July Revolution” in Europe 429 

The “July Revolution” in Europe 

The events in France created a sensation through- 
out Europe. The reactionaries were horrified at the 
sudden outburst of a revolutionary spirit which for 
fifteen years they had endeavored to suppress; the 
liberals were encouraged to renewed agitation for 
self-government and national rights. Widespread 
disturbances in the Netherlands, Poland, Italy, and 
Germany compelled Metternich to abandon all 
thought of intervening to restore “legitimacy” in 
France. 

The union between the former Austrian Nether¬ 
lands and Holland, made by the Congress of Vienna, 
proved to be very unfortunate. Differences of lan¬ 
guage, religion, and culture kept the two countries 
apart. Though about one-half of the Belgians were 
Flemings and hence closely akin to the Dutch in 
blood and speech, the other half were French-speak¬ 
ing Walloons. Both Flemings and Walloons felt a 
religious antipathy to the Protestant Dutch. Both 
alike had French sympathies and looked toward 
Paris for inspiration rather than toward The Hague. 
The antagonism between the two peoples might have 
lessened in time, had not the government of Holland 
incensed Belgian patriots by imposing upon them 
Dutch law, Dutch as the official language, and Dutch 
control of the army, the civil service, and the schools. 

Just a month after the uprising in Paris, Brussels 
responded to the revolutionary signal. The insur¬ 
rection soon spread to the provinces and led to a de¬ 
mand for complete separation from Holland. The 
French government under Louis Philippe naturally 
favored this course, and Great Britain, a champion 



43° Democratic Movement in Europe 


of small nationalities, also gave it her approval. The 
three eastern powers would gladly have intervened 
to prevent such a breach of the Vienna settlement, 



but Austria and Russia had disorders of their own to 
quell, and Prussia did not dare, single-handed, to 

































































The July Revolution” in Europe 431 

France' 10 ' 1 " m ‘ Sht bring ^ int ° collision wit h 

. Under these circumstances an international con¬ 
ference met at London in 1831. It decided that Bel¬ 
gium should be “an independent and perpetually 
neutral state,” with Leopold of Saxe-Coburg as the 
first ruler. The British had to blockade the Dutch 
coast and the French to occupy Antwerp before the 
king of Holland would consent to this arrangement. 
Fie did not recognize the independence of Belgium 
until 1839. In that year Belgian neutrality was 
further guaranteed by a treaty to which Great Brit- 
ain, France, Austria, Prussia, and Russia pledged 
their faith. Thus a new state, under a new dynasty, 
was added to the European family of nations. 

The disposition of the grand duchy of Luxemburg 
(originally a part of the Holy Roman Empire) 
formed a troublesome problem for the powers. The 
Congress of Vienna had made it a member of the 
Germanic Confederation, intrusting its sovereignty 
and vote in the confederation to the king of the 
Netherlands. The decision reached in 1831 was to 
give eastern Luxemburg, together with Limburg, to 
Holland, while the Walloon or western part of Lux¬ 
emburg remained under Belgium. The Dutch king 
accepted this partition eight years later. 

Like the Belgians, the Poles were one of the “sub¬ 
merged nationalities” of the nineteenth century. The 
Congress of Vienna, it will be remembered, had 
maintained the results of the former partitions, giv¬ 
ing the greater part of Poland to Russia, but allow¬ 
ing Prussia and Austria to keep, respectively, Posen 
and Galicia. Russian Poland became a self-govern¬ 
ing, constitutional state, with the tsar, Alexander I, 


432 


Democratic Movement in Europe 


as its king. This experiment in liberalism did not 
last long. Alexander I, who fell more and more 
under Metternich’s reactionary influence, proceeded 
to curtail Polish rights and privileges, and the acces¬ 
sion in 1825 of his brother, Nicholas I, placed on the 



throne an inflexible opponent of free institutions. 
Such was the situation when news of the revolution in 
Paris reached Warsaw. 

The insurrection which now broke out in the 
capital soon became general throughout the country. 
It found no support with the Austrian and Prussian 
governments, while France and Great Britain were 
too far away to lend effective aid. Having crushed 
the revolt, Tsar Nicholas determined to uproot all 


























































































































































The July Revolution” in Europe 433 

sense of nationality among the Poles. He revoked 

their fW Stl T 10n ; " b ° lished their Diet, suppressed 
< g, and exiled or executed thousands of Polish 

patriots. I oland was flooded with Russian agents, 
he Russian tongue was made the official language 
an t e Polish army was incorporated with the im¬ 
perial troops. Poland became, as far as force could 
make her, simply another province of Russia 

Revolution in Italy proved to be likewise abortive 
Th.s time not the Sicilian and Sardinian kingdoms,' 
ut the States of the Church and Parma and Modena 
formed the centers of disturbance. The revolution¬ 
ists raised a new tricolor of red, white, and green 
(which subsequently became the Italian flag) de- 
c ared the pope deposed from temporal power,’ and 
drove out the sovereigns of the two duchies. No 
help reached the patriots from Louis Philippe as 
they had expected, nor did the people of the other 
ta lan states rally to their support.- The result 
might have been foreseen. Metternich’s Austrian 
soldiers quickly extinguished the insurrectionary 
fires and restored the exiled rulers. Italy remained 
a Hapsburg province. 


The discontent which had been smoldering in Ger¬ 
many since 1815 also flamed forth into revolution. 
Popular outbreaks led in Saxony to the grant of a 
constitution, and in Hanover and Brunswick, which 
already enjoyed constitutional government, to further 
liberal measures. But the movement made no more 
progress, for the great states, Austria and Prussia, 
remained quiet. The Diet of the confederation, up¬ 
on Metternich’s motion, passed a decree declaring all 
concessions wrung from a sovereign by violent means 
to be null and void; while another decree announced 


434 


Democratic Movement in Europe 


that a parliament which refused taxes to the head 
of a state might be coerced by the confederation’s 
troops. These repressive measures had their effect 
in reducing Germany to its former condition of po¬ 
litical stagnation. 

Notwithstanding the setbacks to the cause of de¬ 
mocracy and nationalism in Poland, Italy, and Ger¬ 
many, the year 1830 marks an important stage in the 
decline of Metternichismus and the system of armed 
intervention. Both the overthrow of the restored 
Bourbon monarchy in France and the disruption of 
the kingdom of the Netherlands threatened the sta¬ 
bility of the treaties made in 1815. In the one case, 
the powers had to abandon, as far as France was con¬ 
cerned, the precious doctrine of “legitimacy” and to 
acquiesce in the right of the French nation to deter¬ 
mine its own form of government. In the other case, 
they had to submit to a radical modification of the 
territorial settlement of Vienna. 

The next eighteen years of European history wit¬ 
nessed no conspicuous triumphs for either democracy 
or nationalism on the Continent. Italy and Germany 
remained as disunited as ever. Bohemia and Hun¬ 
gary continued to be subject to the Hapsburgs, and 
Poland, to the Romanovs. Metternich, though 
growing old and weary, still kept his power at 
Vienna. The new rulers who came to the throne at 
this time—Ferdinand I in Austria and Frederick 
William IV in Prussia—were no less autocratic than 
their predecessors. But beneath the surface discon¬ 
tent and unrest intensified, becoming all the stronger 
because so sternly repressed by the governments. 
Journalists, lawyers, professors, and other liberal- 
minded men, who might have been mere reformers, 



The “February Revolution” 


435 


adopted radical and even revolutionary views and 
sought with increasing success to impress them upon 
the working classes of the cities, the hungry prole¬ 
tariat who wanted freedom and who wanted bread. 
From time to time mutterings of the coming storm 
were heard; it burst in France. 

The “February Revolution” and the Second 

French Republic, 1848 

Louis Philippe posed as a thorough democrat. 
He liked to be called the “Citizen King,” walked the 
streets of Paris unattended, sent his sons to the public 
schools, and opened the royal palace to all who 
wished to come and shake hands with the head of 
the state. It soon became clear, however, that under 
an exterior of republican simplicity Louis Philippe 
had all the Bourbon craving for personal power. A 
semblance of parliamentary government was indeed 
preserved, but by skillful bestowal of the numerous 
public offices and by open bribery the king managed 
to keep a subservient majority in the Chamber of 
Deputies. In spite of franchise reforms which 
raised the number of voters from about 100,000 to 
200,000, the majority of citizens continued to be 
excluded from political life. The French people 
found that they had only exchanged the rule of 
clergy and nobles for that of the upper bourgeoisie. 
Bankers, manufacturers, merchants—the wealthy 
middle class—now had a monopoly of office and law¬ 
making. 

Few Frenchmen, outside of the bourgeoisie, sup¬ 
ported their sovereign. Both the Legitimists, as the 
adherents of Charles X were called, and the Bona- 
partists, who wished to restore the Napoleonic 


43 6 Democratic Movement in Europe 


dynasty, cordially hated him. The Republicans, 
who had brought about the kk July Revolution’’ and 
felt themselves cheated by its outcome, held him in 
even greater detestation. No less than six attempts 
to assassinate the “Citizen King” were made in the 
course of his reign. 

The growing discontent produced a number of 
plots and insurrections, which Louis Philippe met 
with the time-honored policy of repression. All 
societies were required to submit their constitutions 
to the government for approval. Editors of out¬ 
spoken newspapers were jailed, fined, or banished. 
Criticism or caricature of the king in any form was 
forbidden. Adolphe Thiers, the liberal prime min¬ 
ister, was displaced by Guizot, a famous historian 
but a thorough reactionary. Louis Philippe, like his , 
predecessor, seemed quite determined that his throne 
should not be “an empty armchair.” 

Affairs did not become critical in Paris until 1848. 
On Washington’s birthday of that year vast crowds 
assembled on the Place de la Concorde and clamored 
for Guizot’s resignation. He did resign the next 
day, and the frightened king promised concessions; 
but it was too late. Workingmen armed themselves, 
threw up barricades, and raised the ominous cry, 
“Long live the republic!” Louis Philippe, losing 
heart and fearing to lose head as well, at once ab¬ 
dicated the throne and as plain “Mr. Smith” sought 
an asylum in England. 

His abdication and departure did not save the 
Orleans monarchy. The revolutionists in Paris pro¬ 
claimed a republic and summoned a national assem¬ 
bly, to be elected by all Frenchmen above the age 
of twenty-one, to draw up a constitution. Their 


The February Revolution” in Europe 437 

action found favor in the departements, which as 
usual followed the lead of the capital city. 

The constitution of the second French Republic 
formed a thoroughly liberal document. It guaran¬ 
teed complete freedom of speech and of assembly, 
prohibited capital punishment for political offenses,’ 
and abolished all titles of nobility. There was to be 
a parliament of a single chamber, a responsible 
ministry, and a president chosen by universal man¬ 
hood suffrage. This extension of the suffrage to in¬ 
clude the masses marks an epoch in the history 
of democracy. The revolutions of 1789 and 1830 
destroyed absolute monarchy and privileged aris¬ 
tocracy in France; the revolution of 1848 overthrew 
middle-class government and established political 
equality. 

The voters elected to the presidency Louis Na¬ 
poleon, a nephew of the great emperor and the eldest 
representative of his family. During the reactionary 
rule of the Bourbons and the dull, bourgeois mon¬ 
archy of Louis Philippe, the legend of a Napoleon 
who was at once a democrat, a soldier, and a revolu¬ 
tionary hero had grown apace. The stories of every 
peasant’s fireside, the pictures on every cottage wall, 
kept his memory green. To the mass of the French 
people the name Napoleon stood for prosperity at 
home and glory abroad; and their votes now swept 
his nephew into office. 

The “February Revolution” in Europe 

France had once more lighted the revolutionary 
torch, and this time eager hands took it up and 
carried it throughout the Continent. Within a few 
months half of the monarchs of Europe were either 


438 Democratic Movement in Europe 


deposed or forced to concede liberal reforms. No 
less than fifteen separate revolts marked the year 
1848. Those in the Austrian Empire, Italy, and the 
German states assumed most importance. 

Vienna, the citadel of reaction, was one of the 
first scenes of a popular uprising. Mobs, which the 
civic guard refused to suppress, fired Metternich’s 
palace and compelled the white-haired old minister 
to resign office. Quitting the capital in disguise and 
with a price set upon his head, he made his way to 
England, there to compare experiences with that 
other exile, Louis Philippe. Thus disappeared 
from view the man who for nearly forty years had 
guided the destinies of Austria, one whose name has 
been handed down as a synonym for illiberal and op¬ 
pressive government. 

Metternich's fall left the radical elements in con¬ 
trol at Vienna. The city was ruled for a time by a 
revolutionary committee of students and citizens. 

j 

The Hapsburg emperor, Ferdinand I, who so hated 
the very word “constitution” that he is said to have 
forbidden its use in his presence, had to grant a con¬ 
stitutional charter for all his dominions except Hun¬ 
gary and Lombardy-Venetia. A parliament, uni¬ 
versal suffrage, free speech, and a free press were 
also promised by the emperor—promises which he 
conveniently ignored at the first opportunity. 

What had begun as a democratic movement among 
the Germans of Vienna speedily became a national 
movement among other peoples of the Hapsburg 
realm. The Czechs of Bohemia believed that the 
hour had struck to regain their liberties, suppressed 
by Austria since the Thirty Years’ War. They de¬ 
manded a large measure of self-government. The 



The February Revolution” in Europe 439 

Magyars also revolted and established an indepen¬ 
dent Hungarian Republic, with the patriot Kossuth 
as president. 

The Austrian Empire was saved from dissolution 
at this time by the bitter conflicts of its various na¬ 
tionalities among themselves, by the loyalty of the 
army to the Hapsburg dynasty, and by foreign inter¬ 
vention. The Bohemian insurrection first collapsed. 
The Magyars, however, resisted so sternly that 
Francis Joseph I, who had recently come to the 
throne, had to call in the aid of his brother-monarch 
and brother-reactionary, the tsar. Nicholas I, fear¬ 
ing lest an independent Hungary should be followed 
by an independent Poland, joined his troops to those 
of the Austrians, and together they overwhelmed the 
Magyar armies. Kossuth escaped to Turkey. The 
other leaders of revolution perished on the gallows 
or before a firing squad. 

The revolutionary flood also spread over the Ital¬ 
ian Peninsula. Milan, the capital of Lombardy, ex¬ 
pelled an Austrian garrison. Venice did the same 
and set up once more the old Venetian Republic, 
which Napoleon had suppressed. Charles Albert, 
king of Sardinia, declared war on hated Austria. To 
his aid came troops from the duchies of Parma, 
Modena, and Tuscany, from the States of the 
Church, and from the Two Sicilies. Charles Al¬ 
bert’s proud boast, “Italy will do it herself,” seemed 
likely to be justified. 

The splendid dream of a free, united Italy quickly 
faded before the realities of war. The patriotic 
parties would not act together and failed to give the 
king of Sardinia hearty support. The pope, Pius 
IX, fearing a schism in the Church, decided that he 


44° Democratic Movement in Europe 

could not afford to attack Catholic Austria. The 
Bourbon ruler of the Two Sicilies also withdrew his 
troops. Sardinia, fighting alone, was no match for 
Austria. After losing the battle of Novara (1849), 
Charles Albert abdicated and went into voluntary 
exile. His son and successor, Victor Emmanuel II, 
made peace with Austria. 

A republic set up in Rome by the revolutionary 
leader, Mazzini, also came to grief. Pius IX, who 
had been deprived of his temporal possessions, called 
in the assistance of Catholic France. To the pope’s 
appeal Louis Napoleon lent a willing ear, since he 
did not wish to allow all Italy to be subjugated by 
Austria. A French army soon expelled the repub¬ 
lican leaders and restored the States of the Church 
to the pope. The revolution in Italy thus brought 
only disappointment to patriotic hearts. 

Almost all the German states experienced revolu¬ 
tionary disturbances during 1848. The cry rose 
everywhere for constitutions, parliaments, responsi¬ 
ble ministries, a free press, and trial by jury. Berlin 
followed the example of Vienna and threw up bar¬ 
ricades. Frederick William IV bowed before the 
storm. He promised a constitutional government 
for Prussia and even consented to ride in state 
through the streets of the pacified capital, wearing 
the black, red, and gold colors of the triumphant 
revolutionists. 

The German people at this time also took an im¬ 
portant step toward unification. A national assem¬ 
bly, chosen by popular vote, with one representative 
for every fifty thousand inhabitants, met at Frank¬ 
fort to devise a form of government for the united 
Fatherland. It was decided to establish a new 


The February Revolution” in Europe 441 

federation, including Prussia, but excluding the 
non-Germanic territories of Austria. The learned 
members of the assembly had all the scholarship 
necessary for the solution of constitutional questions. 
Unfortunately, they lacked power. The revolution- 
ar y movements had not affected the armies, which, 
under their aristocratic officers, remained faithful to 
the princes of Germany. As long as the princes kept 
this weapon, the assembly could wield only a moral 
authority. It might pass decrees, but it possessed no 
means of executing them. 

Though some of the members of the Frankfort As¬ 
sembly wanted to set up a republic, the majority 
favored a federal empire with a hereditary 
sovereign. The imperial title was offered to Fred¬ 
erick William IV. He declined it. That Prussian 
ruler had no desire to exchange his monarchy by 
divine right for a sovereignty resting on the votes of 
the people; he would not accept a “crown of shame” 
from the hands of a popular assembly. Moreover, 
he knew that the house of Hapsburg would never 
consent willingly to the assumption of the imperial 
dignity by a Hohenzollern. Prussia thus made “the 
great refusal,” which destroyed the hope of creating 
by peaceful means a democratic German Empire. 

Rebuffed by Prussia and faced with the opposition 
of Austria, the Frankfort Assembly dwindled out of 
existence. Some of the more radical Germans in 
Saxony, Baden, and the Rhenish Palatinate then at¬ 
tempted to set up a republic by force of arms. Their 
efforts were in vain. Prussian troops bloodily sup¬ 
pressed the revolution and sealed the doom of the 
first German Republic. 

The “February Revolution” died down in Europe, 


44 2 Democratic Movement in Europe 

seemingly having accomplished little. Almost every¬ 
where the old autocracies remained in the saddle. 
The Austrian constitution was revoked when Francis 
Joseph I, an apt pupil of Metternich, came to the 
throne. The constitution which Frederick William 
IV granted to Prussia in 1850 did, indeed, provide 
for representative government, but otherwise turned 
out to be a very illiberal document. In France, also, 
the new republic soon drifted upon the rocks of reac¬ 
tion. Discouraged by these failures, the European 
peoples now gave over to some extent the agitation 
for democratic reforms. They turned, instead, to the 
task of nation building. 


CHAPTER XIII 


THE NATIONAL MOVEMENT IN EUROPE, 1848-1871 

Modern Nationalism 

Since the close of the eighteenth century, the idea 
of nationalism has been at least as potent as that of 
democracy in molding modern history. What is a 
nation? The word should not be confused with 
“state,” which means the entire political community, 
nor with “government,” which refers to the legisla¬ 
tive, executive, and judicial organization of the state. 
A “nation” may be defined as a people or group of 
peoples united by common ideals and common pur¬ 
poses. 

National feeling does not depend on identity of 
race, for that can be found nowhere. The inhabit¬ 
ants of every European country are greatly mixed in 
blood. It does depend, in part, on sameness of 
speech. There is always difficulty in uniting popula¬ 
tions with different languages. The examples of 
bilingual Belgium and trilingual Switzerland show, 
however, that nations may exist without unity of 
language. Sameness of religion also acts as a unify¬ 
ing force; nevertheless, most modern nations include 
representatives of diverse faiths. National feeling, 
in fact, is essentially a historic product. That which 
makes a nation is a common heritage of memories 
of the past and hopes for the future. Ireland has 
long been joined to England, but Irish nationality 
has not disappeared. Bohemia, long subject to the 

443 


444 National Movement in Europe 

Hapsburgs, never lost her national spirit. The Polish 
nation still lived, though after the partitions Poland 
disappeared from the map of Europe. The Jews 
have been scattered throughout the world for many 
centuries, yet they continue to look forward to their 
reunion in the Holy Land. While national feeling 
endures, a nation cannot perish. 

Nationalism scarcely existed among the ancient 
Greeks, who made the town or the city their typical 
social unit. It was equally unfamiliar to the Romans, 
who created a world-wide state. It lay dormant 
throughout most of the Middle Ages, when feudal¬ 
ism was local and the Church and the Empire were 
alike international. Only toward the close of the 
medieval period did a sense of nationality arise in 
England, France, Spain, and some other countries. 
This was due to various reasons: the development of 
the king’s power as opposed to that of the feudal 
nobles; the growth of the Third Estate, or bour¬ 
geoisie, always far more national in their attitude 
than either nobility or clergy; the rise of vernacular 
languages and literatures, replacing Latin in common 
use; finally, the danger of conquest by foreigners, 
which greatly stimulated patriotic sentiments. The 
spread of education and of facilities for trade, travel, 
and intercourse during modern times made it possible 
for ideas of nationalism to permeate the masses of 
the people in each land. They began to feel them¬ 
selves closely bound together and to call themselves a 
nation. 

The French Revolution did most to develop this 
national sentiment. The revolutionists created the 
fatherland,” as we understand that term to-day. 
They substituted the French nation for the French 


Modem Nationalism 


445 


kingdom; for loyalty to a monarch they substituted 
love of country. When an attempt was made to crush 
the Revolution, they rose as one man, and to the in¬ 
spiring strains of the Marseillaise drove the invaders 
from the “sacred soil” of France. 

But not satisfied with defending the Revolution at 
home, the French started to spread it abroad, and in 
doing so became aggressive. They posed as libera¬ 
tors; very speedily they proved to be subjugators. A 
republican general, Napoleon Bonaparte, trans¬ 
formed their citizen levies into professional soldiers 
devoted to his fortunes and led them to victory on 
a score of battle-fields. Napoleon, himself a man 
without a country, felt no sympathy for nationalism. 
Out of a Europe composed of many independent and 
often hostile states, he wished to create a unified 
Europe after the model supplied by Charlemagne’s 
empire. He even intended, had he been successful 
in the Russian campaign, to move the capital of his 
dominions, and by the banks of the Tiber to revive 
the glories of imperial Rome. 

Napoleon carried all before him until he came into 
conflict with nations instead of sovereigns. The senti¬ 
ment of nationalism, which had saved republican 
France, now inspired the British in their long contest 
with the French emperor, spurred the Portuguese 
and Spaniards to revolt against him, and strengthened 
the will of Austrians, Prussians, and Russians never 
to accept a foreign despotism. What the Haps- 
burgs, Hohenzollerns, and Romanovs failed to do, 
their subjects accomplished. The national resistance 
to Napoleon, aroused throughout the Continent, 
destroyed his empire. 

The reaction which followed the Congress of 


446 National Movement in Europe 

Vienna checked, but could not destroy, the national 
aspirations of European peoples. As we have learned 
in the preceding chapter, nationalism combined with 
all the liberal or democratic sentiments aroused by 
the French Revolution to provoke the revolutionary 
upheavals between 1815 and 1848. These met only 
partial success, but during the next twenty-three years 
nationalism won its most conspicuous triumphs in 
the unification of Italy and of Germany. 

Napoleon III and the Second French Empire, 

1852-1870 

European history from 1848 to 1871 is dominated 
by the personality of the second French emperor, 
Louis Napoleon, who influenced the fortunes of 
France, Italy, Germany, Austria, and Russia almost 
as profoundly as did Napoleon Bonaparte half a cen¬ 
tury earlier. He was the son of Napoleon’s brother 
Louis, at one time king of Holland, and after the 
death of the king of Rome” (Napoleon II) became 
the recognized head of the house of Bonaparte. His 
early life had been a succession of adventures. Exiled 
from h ranee at the time of the Bourbon restoration, 
he found his way to many lands, and in Italy even 
became a member of a revolutionary secret society. 
Twice he tried to provoke an uprising in France 
against the Orleans monarchy and in favor of his 
dynasty. On the first occasion he appeared at Stras- 
bourg, wearing his uncle’s hat, boots, and sword, but 
these talismans did not prevent his capture and depor¬ 
tation to the United States. A second imitation of 
the “return from Elba” led to his imprisonment for 
six years in a French fortress. He then escaped to 
England and waited there, full of faith in his destiny, 





NAPOLEON III 















Napoleon III and Second French Empire 447 

until the events of 1848 recalled him home. His 

election to the presidency of the French Republic 
soon followed. 

Louis Napoleon, upon becoming president of 
France, swore to remain faithful to the republic and 
“to regard as enemies of the nation all those who may 
attempt by illegal means to change the form of the 
established government.” Events soon showed how 
well the oath was kept. His uncle had progressed by 
rapid steps from the consulate to the empire; he him¬ 
self determined to use the presidency as a stepping- 
stone to the imperial crown. The recent adoption of 
universal manhood suffrage by the French made it 
necessary for him to enlist the support of all classes 
of the population. The army, of course, welcomed a 
Bonaparte at its head. The peasantry and bourgeoisie 
felt reassured when Louis Napoleon, far from being 
a radical, disclosed himself as a guardian of landed 
property and business interests. The workingmen, 
who had largely carried through the "‘February 
Revolution, were conciliated by the promise of 
special laws for their benefit. So skillfully did the 
prince-president curry favor with these different 
groups of opinion in France that it was not long 
before he attained his goal. 

The republican constitution had limited the presi¬ 
dent’s term to four years, without the privilege of 
reelection. Louis Napoleon did not intend to retire 
to private life, and determined to carry through a 
coup d'etat. On the anniversary of the battle of Aus- 
terlitz, loyal troops occupied Paris, dissolved the 
legislature, and arrested the president’s chief oppo¬ 
nents. An insurrection in the streets of the capital 
was ruthlessly suppressed by the soldiers, and 


448 National Movement in Europe 

throughout France thousands of Republicans were 
imprisoned, exiled, or transported to penal colonies 
across the seas. The French people, when called upon 
by a plebiscite to express an opinion as to these pro¬ 
ceedings, ratified them by a large majority. „ Louis 
Napoleon then made over the government in such a 
way as to give himself well-nigh absolute power. 

It needed only a change of name to transform the 
republic into an empire. An almost unanimous 
popular vote in 1852 authorized the president to 
accept the title of Napoleon III, hereditary emj)eror 
of the French. 

France under Napoleon III had a constitution, 
universal manhood suffrage, and a legislature—all 
the machinery of popular rule. But France was free 
in appearance only. The emperor kept control of 
law-making, diplomacy, the army and navy, and the 
entire administrative system. France the more 
readily acquiesced in the loss of freedom because 
under the Second Empire she enjoyed material pros¬ 
perity. Napoleon III felt a sincere interest in the 
welfare of all classes, including the hitherto neglected 
proletariat. By charitable gifts, endowments, and 
subsidies he tried to show that the idea of improving 
the lot of those who are “the most numerous and 
the most poor” lay ever present in his mind. His was 
a government of cheap food, vast public works to 
furnish employment, and many holidays. “Emperor 
of the workmen” his admirers called him. On the 
other hand, business men profited by the remarkable 
development during this period of banks, factories, 
railways, canals, and steamship lines. 1 he progress 
made was strikingly shown at the first Paris Expo¬ 
sition in 1855, when all the world flocked to the 



Disunited Italy 449 

beautiful capital to see the products of French indus¬ 
try and art. 

Having failed to marry into the royal families of 
Europe, who looked askance at an adventurer, Napo¬ 
leon III wedded for love a Spanish lady, Eugenie 
de Montijo. Her beauty and elegance helped to 
make the court at the Tuileries such a center of 
European fashion as it had been under the Old 
Regime. The birth of an heir, the ill-fated Prince- 
Imperial, seemed to make certain the perpetuation 
of the Napoleonic dynasty. Fortune had indeed 
smiled upon the emperor. 

“The empire means peace,” Napoleon III had 
announced shortly before assuming the imperial title. 
Nevertheless, he proceeded to make war. Like his 
uncle, he believed that all that the French people 
wanted to satisfy them was military glory. The 
emperor had not been two years on the throne before 
he embarked upon the Crimean War against Russia. 
It terminated victoriously for him in the Treaty of 
Paris, the most important diplomatic arrangement in 
Europe since that of Vienna. A few years later 
success still more spectacular attended his interven¬ 
tion in the Austro-Sardinian War for the liberation 
of Italy. 

Disunited Italy 

It might seem from a glance at the map as if Italy, 
with the Mediterranean on three sides and the Alps 
on the fourth, was specially intended by nature to be 
the seat of a unified nation. But the map is deceptive. 
The number, position, and comparative lowness of 
the Alpine passes combine to make Italy fairly acces¬ 
sible from the north and northwest; from before the 


4So National Movement in Europe 

dawn of history these passes, together with the river 
valleys which approach them, have facilitated the 
entrance of invading peoples. The extreme length 
of the peninsula in proportion to its breadth, its 
division into two unequal parts by the Apennines, and 
the separateness of the Po basin from the rest of the 
country are also unfavorable to Italian unity. 

Historical circumstances have been even more un¬ 
favorable. The Lombards, Franks, Normans, and 
Germans—to say nothing of the Moslems and Byzan¬ 
tines—who established themselves in Italy during the 
Middle Ages, divided the peninsula into small, weak, 
and mutually jealous states. In later times Spaniards, 
French, and Austrians annexed part of the country 
and governed much of the remainder through its 
petty princes. The popes also worked throughout 
the medieval and modern period to keep Italy frag¬ 
mentary. They realized that unification meant the 
extinction of the States of the Church, or at least 
papal dependence on the secular power, and they felt 
that this would interfere with the impartiality which 
the head of the Church ought to exercise toward 
Roman Catholics in all lands. Furthermore, the 
Italians themselves lacked national ideals and pre¬ 
served from antiquity the tradition of separate city- 
communities, ruled, it may be, by despots or else self- 
governing, but in any case independent. Such were 
medieval Genoa, Pisa, Milan, Florence, and Venice. 

Italian history, for the century and a half between 
the Peace of Westphalia and the outbreak of the 
French Revolution, is almost a blank. The glories of 
Renaissance art, literature, scholarship, and science 
were now but a memory. Centuries of misrule and 
internecine strife crushed the creative energies of the 


45i 


Disunited Italy 

people, while their material welfare steadily declined 
after the discovery of America and the Cape route 
to the Indies shifted trade centers from the Mediter¬ 
ranean to the Atlantic. Divided, dependent, impov¬ 
erished, Italy had indeed fallen on evil days. 

The Italians describe their national movement as 
a Risorgimento, a “resurrection” of a people once the 
most civilized and prosperous in Europe. It dates 
from the shock of the French Revolution. The 
armies of revolutionary France drove out the Austri¬ 
ans, set up republics in the northern part of the penin¬ 
sula, and swept away the abuses of the Old Regime. 
Italy began to rouse herself from her long torpor and 
to hope for unity and freedom. Napoleon Bonaparte, 
himself an Italian by birth, continued the unifying 
work of the French revolutionists. All Italy, except 
the islands of Sardinia and Sicily, was either annexed 
to France or made dependent on France. Through¬ 
out the country the French emperor introduced per¬ 
sonal freedom, religious toleration, equality before 
the law, and the even justice of the Code Napoleon. 

The year 1815 was one of cruel disappointment to 
patriotic Italians, who saw their country again dis¬ 
membered, subject to Austria, and under reactionary 
princes. Men who had once experienced Napoleon’s 
enlightened rule would not acquiesce in this restora¬ 
tion of the Old Regime. The great mass of the bour¬ 
geoisie , many of the nobles, and some of the better 
educated artisans now began to work for the expul¬ 
sion of Austria from the peninsula and for the forma¬ 
tion of a constitutional government in the various 
states. Unable to agitate publicly, these Italians of 
necessity resorted to underground methods. A secret 
society, the Carbonari (“Charcoal burners”), sprang 


4 S 2 National Movement in Europe 


out of the Freemasons, spread throughout Italy, and 
incited the first unsuccessful revolutions (those of 
1820-1821, 1830) against Austria. After their failure 
the society ceased to have much importance and made 
way for another revolutionary organization, Maz- 
zini’s “Young Italy.” 

Giuseppe Mazzini, the prophet of modern Italy, 
was born at Genoa of a middle-class and well-to-do 
family. Endowed with all a prophet's enthusiasm 
and moral fervor, Mazzini from early manhood gave 
himself to the regeneration of his country. He hated 
the Austrians, and he hated the princes and prince¬ 
lings who served Austria rather than Italy. At a 
time when the obstacles in the way seemed insuper¬ 
able, he believed that twenty millions of Italians 
could free themselves, if only they would sink local 
interests and jealousies in a common patriotism. It 
was Mazzini's great service that he inspired multi¬ 
tudes of men with this belief, thus converting what 
had seemed a utopia to his contemporaries into a 
realizable ideal. In 1831 Mazzini founded the secret 
society called “Young Italy.” It included only men 
under forty, ardent, self-sacrificing men, who pledged 
themselves to serve as missionaries of liberty through¬ 
out Italy. Its motto was “God and the people”; its 
purpose, the creation of a republic. 

As far as practical results were concerned, “Young 
Italy” proved to be as ineffective as the Carbonari 
had been. Nevertheless, the society kept alive the 
enthusiasm for Italian nationalism during more than 
a decade. Meanwhile, other political parties began 
to take shape. Many patriotic men who did not 
favor republican principles hoped to form a feder¬ 
ation of the Italian states under the presidency of the 


Victor Emmanuel II and Cavour 453 

pope. Many more pinned their faith to a constitu¬ 
tional monarchy under the Sardinian king. 

Victor Emmanuel II and Cavour 

The kingdom of Sardinia, the reader will remem¬ 
ber, included not only the island of that name but 
also Savoy and Piedmont on the mainland. At the 
middle of the nineteenth century Sardinia ranked as 
the leading state in Italy. It was, moreover, the only 
Italian state not controlled by Austria since 1815, and 
in 1848-1849 it had warred bravely, though unsuc¬ 
cessfully, against that foreign power. After Pope 
Pius IX had shown himself unwilling to head the 
national movement, and after Mazzini had failed 
in his attempt to create a Roman Republic, Italian 
eyes turned more and more to Victor Emmanuel II 
as the most promising leader in the struggle for inde¬ 
pendence. 

Victor Emmanuel II in 1849 mounted the throne 
of a country crushed by defeat, burdened with a 
heavy war indemnity, and without a place in the 
councils of Europe. The outlook was dark, but the 
new ruler faced it with resolution. Though not a 
man of brilliant mind, he possessed much common 
sense and had personal qualities which soon won him 
wide popularity. He was a devoted Churchman. 
He was also a thorough liberal. His father in 1848 
had granted a constitution to the Sardinians; he 
maintained it in spite of Austrian protests, when all 
the other Italian princes lapsed into absolutism. 
Patriots of every type—Roman Catholics, republi¬ 
cans, and constitutionalists—could rally about this 
“Honest King,” who kept his plighted word. 

Fortunately for Italy, Victor Emmanuel II had a 



454 National Movement in Europe 


great minister in the Piedmontese noble, Count 
Cavour. His plain, square face, fringed with a rag¬ 
ged beard, his half-closed eyes that blinked through 
steel-bowed spectacles, and his short, burly figure did 
not suggest the statesman. Cavour, however, was 
finely educated and widely traveled. He knew Eng¬ 
land well, admired the English system of parliament¬ 
ary government, and felt a corresponding hatred of 
absolutist principles. Unlike the poetical and specu¬ 
lative Mazzini, Cavour had all the patience, caution, 
and mastery of details essential for successful leader¬ 
ship. It must be added, also, that his devotion to the 
cause of unification made him sometimes unscrupu¬ 
lous about the methods to be employed: upon occasion 
he could stoop to all the tricks of the diplomatic 
game. As the sequel will show, his “fine Italian 
hand” seldom lost its cunning. 

Cavour became the Sardinian premier in 1852, a 
position which he continued to fill, with but one 
brief interruption, until his death nine years later. 
Faithfully supported by Victor Emmanuel II, Cav¬ 
our bent every effort to develop the economic 
resources of the kingdom, foster education, and 
reorganize the army. He made Sardinia a strong 
and liberal state; strong enough to cope with Austria, 
liberal enough to attract to herself all the other 
states of Italy. 

Not less successful was Cavour’s management of 
foreign affairs. Upon assuming office he had 
declared that Sardinia must reestablish in Europe 
“a position and prestige equal to her ambition.” The 
Crimean War gave an opportunity to do so. Though 
Sardinia had only a remote interest in the Eastern 
Question, nevertheless she sent twenty thousand sol- 


^ ictoi Emmanuel II and Cavour 455 

diers to fight with the British and French against the 
Russians. For her reward she secured admittance, 
as one of the belligerents, to the Congress of Paris! 
which ended the war. Sardinia now had an honor¬ 
able place at the European council-table, and two 

powerful friends in the governments of Great Britain 
and France. 

Always practical and clear-headed, Cavour began 
to seek a military ally in the coming struggle with 
Austria. Public opinion in Great Britain sided with 
the Italian patriots, but her statesmen considered 
themselves still bound by the Vienna settlement and 
could not be relied upon for material assistance. On 
the other hand, France, under the ambitious and 
adventurous Napoleon III, held out the prospect of 
an alliance. The emperor seems to have had a genu¬ 
ine sympathy for Italy; he liked to consider himself 
the champion of oppressed nationalities; and he felt 
no hesitation about tearing up the treaties of 1815, 
treaties humiliating to his dynasty and to France. 
In return for the duchy of Savoy and the port of Nice, 
he now promised an army to help expel the Aus¬ 
trians from Italy. 

The bargain once struck, Cavour had next to pro¬ 
voke the Austrian government into a declaration of 
war. It was essential that Austria be made to appear 
the aggressor in the eyes of Europe. Favour’s agents 
secretly fomented disturbances in Lombardy and Ven- 
etia. Francis Joseph I, the Hapsburg emperor, in 
an outburst of reckless fury, finally sent an ultimatum 
to Sardinia, offering the choice between disarmament 
or instant war. Cavour joyfully accepted the latter. 
“The die is cast,” he exclaimed, “and we have made 
history.” 


45 ^ National Movement in Europe 


United Italy, 1859-1870 

The fighting which ensued lasted only a few 
months. Sardinia and France carried everything 
before them. The allied victory of Magenta com¬ 
pelled the Austrians to evacuate Milan; that of Sol- 
ferino, to abandon Lombardy. Every one now 
expected them to be driven out of Venetia as well. 
Napoleon III, however, considered that he had done 
enough. He had never contemplated the unification 
of all Italy, but only the annexation of Lombardy and 
Venetia to the Sardinian kingdom. The outburst of 
national feeling which accompanied the war prom¬ 
ised, however, to unite the entire peninsula, thus 
creating a strong national state as a near neighbor of 
France. Furthermore, Prussia, fearful lest the vic¬ 
tories of the French-in Italy should be followed by 
their advance in Germany, had begun to mobilize on 
the Rhine. For these and other reasons Napoleon 
III decided to make an end of his Italian venture. 
He sought a personal interview with Francis Joseph 
I and privately concluded the armistice of Villa- 
franca. 

The armistice terms, as finally incorporated in the 
peace treaty, ceded Lombardy to Sardinia. Venetia, 
however, remained Austrian. Victor Emmanuel II 
and Cavour, thus left in the lurch by their ally, had 
to accept an arrangement which dashed their hopes 
just on the point of realization. Losing for once his 
habitual caution, Cavour urged that Sardinia should 
continue the war alone. The king more wisely 
refused to imperil what had been already won. He 
would bide his time and wait. He did not have to 
wait long. 


CAVOUR GARIBALDI 
















457 


United Italy 


The people of central Italy, unaided, took the next 
step in unification. Parma, Modena, Tuscany, and 
Romagna expelled their rulers and declared for 
annexation to Sardinia. This action met the hearty 



support of the British government. Even Napoleon 
III acquiesced, after Cavour handed over to him 
both Savoy and Nice, just as if the French emperor 
had carried out the original agreement and had freed 
Italy from the Alps to the Adriatic.” An ironical 
diplomat described the transaction as Napoleon’s 
pourboire (waiter’s tip). 




























































































458 National Movement in Europe 


The third step in unification was taken by Giu¬ 
seppe Garibaldi, a sailor from Nice, a soldier of 
liberty, and a picturesque, heroic figure. At the age 
of twenty-four Garibaldi joined “Young Italy,” par¬ 
ticipated in an insurrection, for which he was con¬ 
demned to death, escaped to South America, and 
fought there many years for the freedom of the Por¬ 
tuguese and Spanish colonies. Returning to Italy 
during the uprising of 1848, he won renown in the 
defense of Mazzini’s Roman Republic. The col¬ 
lapse of the revolutionary movement made him once 
more a fugitive; he lived for some time in New York; 
later became the skipper of a Peruvian ship; and 
finally settled down as a farmer on a little Italian 
island. The events of 1859 called him from retire¬ 
ment, and he took part effectively in the campaign 
against Austria. 

When the Sicilians threw off the Bourbon rule in 
i860, Garibaldi went to their aid with one thousand 
red-shirted 1 volunteers. It seemed—it was—a fool¬ 
hardy expedition, but to Garibaldi and his “Red 
Shirts” all things were possible. Within a month 
they had conquered the entire island of Sicily. 
Thence they crossed to the mainland and soon entered 
Naples in triumph. The Two Sicilies voted for 
annexation to Sardinia. Garibaldi then handed over 
his conquests to Victor Emmanuel II, and the two 
liberators rode through the streets of Naples side by 
side, amid the plaudits of the people. 

The diplomacy of Cavour, the intervention of 
Napoleon III, Garibaldi’s sword, and the popular 
will thus united the larger part of Italy within two 
years. A national parliament met at Turin in 1861 
and conferred the Italian crown upon Victor Emman- 




Disunited Germany 459 

uel II. Cavour passed away soon afterwards. “Let 
me say a prayer for you, my son,” said a priest to the 
dying statesman. “Yes, father,” was the reply, “but 
let us pray, too, for Italy.” 

The new kingdom was not quite complete. Venice 
and the adjoining region were held by Austria. Rome 
and a fragment of the States of the Church were 
held by the pope. Two great European conflicts 
gave Victor Emmanuel II both of these territories. 
Venetia fell to Italy in 1866, as her reward for an 
alliance with Prussia in the Austro-Prussian War. 
A plebiscite of the Venetians, with only sixty-nine 
votes registered in the negative, approved this action. 

Four years later the Franco-German War broke 
out, compelling Napoleon III to withdraw the 
French garrison from Rome. An Italian army 
promptly occupied the city. The inhabitants, by an 
immense majority, voted for annexation to the mon¬ 
archy. In 1871 the city of the Seven Hills, once the 
capital of imperial Rome, became the capital of the 
kingdom of Italy. 

Even these acquisitions did not quite round out 
the Italian kingdom. There was still an Italia Irre¬ 
denta, an “Unredeemed Italy.” The district about 
Trent in the Alps (the Trentino) and the district 
about Trieste at the head of the Adriatic, though 
largely peopled by Italians, remained under Aus¬ 
trian rule. The desire to recover her lost provinces 
was one of the reasons which led Italy in 1915 to 
espouse the cause of the Allies in the World War. 

Disunited Germany 

The political unification of Germany formed 
another striking triumph for nationalism, even though 


460 National Movement in Europe 

it did not involve, as in the case of Italy, the removal 
of a foreign yoke. National unity could not be won 
as long as a motley crowd of kingdoms, duchies, 
principalities, and free cities encumbered German 
soil. These states—the heritage of feudalism—had 
been practically independent since the close of the 
Thirty Years’ War. Each made its own laws, held 
its own court, conducted its own diplomacy, and had 
its own army, tariff, and coinage. Only a map or a 
series of maps on a large scale can do justice to the 
German “crazy-quilt.” Here was a country, large, 
populous, and wealthy, which lacked a national gov¬ 
ernment, such as had existed in England, France, 
Spain, and even Russia for centuries. 

The Holy Roman Empire furnished no real bond 
of union for Germany. Within the Empire were 
princes who also held territories outside. The 
Hohenzollerns ruled over East Prussia and part of 
Poland; the Hapsburgs, over Hungary, and other 
non-Germanic lands. At the same time the kings of 
Great Britain, Denmark, and Sweden, by virtue of 
their possessions in Hanover, Holstein, and western 
Pomerania, respectively, ranked among the imperial 
princes. Here was an empire which lacked a com¬ 
mon center or capital, such as London, Paris, Mad¬ 
rid, and St. Petersburg were for their respective 
states. 

Tt is one of the ironies of history that Germany 
owes to Napoleon Bonaparte the first measures which 
made possible her later unification. By the Treaty 
of Campo Formio and subsequent treaties Napoleon 
secured for France the Germanic lands west of the 
Rhine, thus dispossessing nearly a hundred princes 
of their territories. He subsequently reorganized 




William 1 and Bismarck 


4^3 


the contrary, were divided between her German and 
numerous non-German peoples, and the Austrian 
government was the apotheosis of reaction. Neither 
nationalists nor democrats could expect help from 
the Hapsburgs. As for the central and southern 
states Saxony, Bavaria, Wiirtemberg, Baden, Han¬ 
over, and the rest—none of them was large enough 
or strong enough to attempt the arduous task of uni¬ 
fication. But if the Hohenzollerns undertook it, how 
would they carry it through? Would they serve 
Germany by merging Prussia in a German nation, as 
Sardinia had been merged in Italy, or would they 
rule Germany? Answers to these questions were 
soon forthcoming. 

The death of Frederick William IV in 1861 called 
to the throne, at the age of sixty-four, his abler 
brother, William I. The new king had industry, 
conscientiousness, a thoroughly practical mind, and, 
what was still more important, the faculty of finding 
capable servants and of trusting them absolutely. A 
firm believer in divine right, he did not allow the 
constitution granted by his predecessor to interfere 
with the royal authority. His ideals, to which he 
steadily adhered through a long reign, were those 
of the “enlightened despots” in the eighteenth cen- 
tury. 

William I was above everything a soldier. The 
Prussian mobilization at the time of the Austro- 
Sardinian War convinced him that the army needed 
strengthening, if it was again to be, as in the days of 
Frederick the Great, the most formidable weapon in 
Europe. With the assistance of Albrecht von Roon 
as war minister and Helmuth von Moltke as chief of 
the general staff, the king now brought forward a 


464 National Movement in Europe 

scheme for army reform. Universal military service 
had been adopted by Prussia during the Napoleonic 
wars, but many men were never called to the colors 
or were allowed to serve for only a short time. Wil¬ 
liam I proposed to enforce strictly the obligation to 
service and in this way to more than double the size 
of the standing army. 

The scheme met strenuous opposition on the part 
of Prussian liberals, who saw in it a detestable alli¬ 
ance between militarism and autocracy. So large an 
army, they argued, could only be intended to overawe 
the people and stifle all democratic agitation. The 
liberals held a majority in the lower house of parlia¬ 
ment and refused to sanction the increased expendi¬ 
tures necessary for army reform. William I decided 
to abdicate if he could not be supreme in military 
matters. A deadlock ensued. It was only broken 
when the king summoned Otto von Bismarck to be 
his chief minister. 

The man who crippled German liberalism and 
created militaristic, imperial Germany belonged to 
the Junker class, which from the beginning had been 
the chief support of Hohenzollern absolutism. Birth, 
training, and inclination made him an aristocrat, an 
enemy of democracy, a foe of parliamentary govern¬ 
ment. He was born in Brandenburg of a wealthy 
country family and received his education at Gottin¬ 
gen and Berlin, acquiring, however, in these universi¬ 
ties a reputation for beer-drinking and dueling rather 
than for studiousness. Young Bismarck entered the 
1 russian parliament and quickly became prominent 
as an outspoken champion of divine-right monarchy. 
Then followed eight years of service as the Prussian 
delegate to the Frankfort Diet, where he gained an 























United Germany 465 

unrivalled insight into German politics. Appoint¬ 
ments as ambassador to the Russian and the French 
courts completed his diplomatic training. Such was 
the man, now forty-seven years of age, tall, power¬ 
fully built, with a mind no less robust than his body, 
who had come to the front in Prussia. 

Ministers, under the Prussian constitution, were 
neither appointed by the parliament nor responsible 
to that body. It was therefore possible for a resolute 
minister, supported by the king and army, to govern 
in defiance of the legislature. This is what Bismarck 
proceeded to do. For four years he ruled practically 
as dictator. Each year, when the parliament refused 
to vote necessary supplies, Bismarck levied, collected, 
and spent taxes without an accounting to the people’s 
representatives. The necessary military reforms 
were then carried out by the masterly hands of Roon 
and Moltke. The country as a whole seems to have 
acquiesced in this bold violation of the constitution. 
Public opinion, except that of the liberal middle 
classes, reechoed Bismarck’s famous and oft-quoted 
words: “Not by speeches and majority resolutions 
are the great questions of the day to be decided— 
that was the mistake of 1848 and 1849—but by blood 
and iron.” 

United Germany, 1864-1871 

Successful at home, Bismarck now turned his 
attention abroad. He and his royal master were 
firmly determined to place Prussia at the head of 
Germany. This meant a conflict with Austria, for 
Bismarck’s experience at Frankfort had convinced 
him that Austria would never willingly surrender 
her place in the Germanic Confederation. From the 



466 National Movement in Europe 

moment of becoming chief minister he had disclosed 
an anti-Austrian bias. He refused to admit Austria 
to the Zollverein and recognized the new Italian 
kingdom with unfriendly haste; finally, he opposed 
Austrian policy in the so-called Schleswig-Holstein 
Question. 

The duchies of Schleswig and Holstein—the one 
partly Danish and partly German in population, the 
other entirely German—had been united to Denmark 
by a personal union through its ruler. They 
remained otherwise independent and stoutly resisted 
all efforts to incorporate them in the Danish king¬ 
dom. Since 1815, moreover, Holstein had been a 
member of the Germanic Confederation. Matters 
came to a head in 1863, when the sovereign of Den¬ 
mark imposed a constitution upon the duchies which 
practically destroyed their independence. This 
action aroused deep resentment among German 
nationalists, who wished to have Schleswig and Hol¬ 
stein united with the Fatherland. 

Bismarck saw clearly what the possession of the 
two duchies, with their strategic position between the 
Baltic and the North Sea and fine harbor at Kiel, 
would mean for the development of German sea- 
power. Their annexation was the goal which he 
kept steadily before his eyes. Accordingly, he pro¬ 
posed joint intervention by Austria and Prussia. 
Austria assented. A brief war followed, in which 
the Danes were overcome by weight of numbers. 
Denmark had to sign a treaty ceding Schleswig and 
Holstein to the victors jointly. 

As Bismarck anticipated, Austria and Prussia 
could not agree concerning the disposition of the con¬ 
quered duchies. The quarrel between them fur- 

































































United Germany 467 

nished a pretext for the conflict which he had deter¬ 
mined to provoke between the house of Hapsburv 
and the house of Hohenzollern. Before hostilities 
began, his astute diplomacy isolated Austria from 
foreign support. Napoleon III engaged to remain 
neutral, on the strength of Bismarck’s promises 
(never meant to be kept) of territorial “compensa¬ 
tions to France from a victorious Prussia. Alex¬ 
ander II, the tsar of Russia, also preserved neutrality 
as a return for Bismarck’s recent offer of Prussian 
troops to suppress an insurrection of the Poles. With 
Italy Bismarck negotiated a treaty of alliance, prom¬ 
ising her Venetia for military assistance to Prussia. 
Austria, on her side, had the support of Saxony, Han¬ 
over, and lesser German states. 

Thanks to the careful organization of the Prussian 
army by Roon and to Moltke’s brilliant strategy, the 
war turned out to be a “Seven Weeks’ War.” The 
Prussians at once took the offensive and quickly over¬ 
ran the territory of Austria’s German allies. The 
three Prussian armies which invaded Bohemia 
crushed their Austrian adversaries in the great battle 

of Sadowa (Koniggratz). Francis Joseph I then 
sued for peace. 

The negotiations which followed revealed Bis¬ 
marck s statesmanship. His royal master wished to 
enter Vienna in triumph, impose a heavy indemnity, 
and take a large slice of the Hapsburg realm. Bis¬ 
marck would not agree, for he did not desire to create 
any lasting antagonism between Austria and Prussia 
which would prevent their future alliance. William 
I finally yielded to his imperious minister and con¬ 
sented to bite “the sour apple” of a moderate peace. 
By the Treaty of Prague, Austria lost no territory 


468 National Movement in Europe 


except Venetia to Italy and her claims upon Schles¬ 
wig-Holstein to Prussia. She consented, however, to 
the dissolution of the Germanic Confederation. 

Bismarck had now a free hand in Germany. His 
first step was the annexation to Prussia of the Schles¬ 
wig-Holstein duchies, together with the kingdom of 
Hanover, the electorate of Hesse-Cassel, the duchy 
of Nassau, and the free city of Frankfort-on-Main. 
The Prussian dominions for the first time stretched 
without a break from Poland to the frontier of 
France. All the independent states north of the 
Main—twenty-one in number—were then required 
by Bismarck to enter a North German Confederation, 
under the presidency of Prussia. The four states 
south of the Main (Bavaria, Wurtemberg, Baden, 
and Hesse), which had thrown in their lot with Aus¬ 
tria, did not enter the new confederation. They 
secretly agreed, however, to place their armies at the 
disposal of Prussia, in the event of war with France. 

For Bismarck a Franco-Germa/i War “lay in the 
logic of history.” He believed it necessary, for joint 
action by the North German and South German 
states against a common foe would quicken national 
sentiment and complete the work of unification under 
Prussia. He also believed it inevitable, in view of 
the traditional French policy of keeping Germany 
disunited in order to have a weak neighbor across the 
Rhine. Napoleon TIT had now begun to regret his 
neutrality in the Austro-Prussian War and to realize 
that if German unity was to be prevented France 
must draw the sword. The emperor did not shrink 
from a struggle which he believed would satisfy 
French opinion. After 1867 both governments pre¬ 
pared for the war which both desired. 



United Germany 469 

In 1870 a single spark set the two countries aflame. 
A revolution had broken out in Spain, and the liber¬ 
als there had offered the crown to a cousin of William 
I. Napoleon III at once informed the Prussian mon¬ 
arch that he would regard the accession of a Hohen- 
zollern as a sufficient justification for war. William 
then gave way and induced his cousin to refuse the 
crown. Thereupon Napoleon went further and 
demanded William’s pledge never to allow a Hohen- 
zollern to become a candidate in the future. This 
pledge William declined to make, and from the 
watering-place of Ems, where he was staying, tele¬ 
graphed his decision to Bismarck at Berlin. After 
learning from Roon and Moltke of Prussia’s com¬ 
plete readiness for hostilities, Bismarck sent the 
king’s statement to the newspapers, not in its origi¬ 
nal form, but so abbreviated as to be insulting. Bis¬ 
marck himself said later that the Ems dispatch 
was intended to have u the effect of a red flag upon 
the Gallic bull.” Soon after receiving it, France 
declared war. 

What followed took away the breath of Europe. 
Fighting began in mid-July; by mid-August a French 
army under Bazaine was shut up in Metz; and on 
September 2 the other army, commanded by Mac- 
Mahon, was defeated and captured at Sedan. 
Napoleon III himself became a prisoner. Bazaine 
surrendered Metz in October. Meanwhile, the Ger¬ 
mans pressed forward the siege of Paris. It held out 
for four months and then capitulated (January, 
1871) to cold and hunger rather than to the enemy. 
The war now ended. 

Bismarck’s harsh treatment of France contrasts 
sharply with his previous moderation toward Aus- 


47° National Movement in Europe 

tria. By the Treaty of Frankfort, France agreed to 
pay an indemnity of one billion dollars within three 
years and to support a German army of occupation 
until this sum was forthcoming. She also ceded to 
Germany Alsace, including Strasbourg, and a large 
part of Lorraine, including Metz. These two forti¬ 
fied cities were regarded as the “gateways” to Ger¬ 
many. 



As far back as 1815 Prussia had tried to secure 
Alsace and Lorraine, in order to provide a more 
defensible frontier for her Rhenish possessions.- 
Bismarck took them, ostensibly to regain what had 
once been German territory, but really because of 
their economic resources (Lorraine is rich in coal 
and iron) and their value as a barrier against future 
French aggression. France could never reconcile 
herself to the loss of the two provinces; after 1871 
she always hoped to win them back. The majority 
of the inhabitants themselves continued to be French 









United Germany 471 

in language and feeling, despite German schools, 
German military training, and a heavy German 
immigration. Alsace and Lorraine thus became 
another open sore on the face of Europe. More than 
anything else, their annexation helped to unsettle the 
peace of the world for nearly half a century. 

Paris had not capitulated, the Treaty of Frank¬ 
fort had not been signed, before united Germany 
came into existence. The four South German states 
yielded to the national sentiment evoked by the war 
and agreed with Prussia to enter the North German 
Confederation, rechristened the German Empire. 
On January 18, 1871, in the Hall of Mirrors at Ver¬ 
sailles, William I took the title of German Emperor. 

The national movement between 1848 and 1871 
turned much of Europe upside down. Austria had 
been driven out of Italy and Germany, which were 
now transformed into great unified states. Denmark 
had lost her duchies. France had lost Alsace- 
Lorraine. All this meant the end of the balance of 
power established in 1815. Napoleon III, Cavour, 
and Bismarck, between them, thus destroyed the 
Vienna settlement. T. he national movement did not 
stop or even lag after 1871. Combined henceforth 
more inextricably with democracy, nationalism con¬ 
tinued to be a moving force in European history 
during the forty-three years which were yet to elapse 
before the outbreak of the World War. 


CHAPTER XIV 

THE UNITED KINGDOM AND THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

Parliamentary Reform, 1832 

At the opening of the nineteenth century the peo¬ 
ple of Great Britain had a constitutional monarchy 
limited by Parliament. The concessions which they 
wrung from their reluctant sovereigns in the seven¬ 
teenth century were embodied in famous state papers, 
including the Petition of Right, the Habeas Corpus 
Act, and the Bill of Rights. To these documents of 
political liberty was added the Act of Settlement in 
1701, which led, thirteen years later, to the accession 
of George I, the first of the Hanoverians. He and 
his son naturally favored the Whigs, who had passed 
the Act of Settlement. The Whig Party included 
many great lords, most of the bishops and town 
clergy, the Nonconformists, and the merchants, 
shopkeepers, and other members of the middle class. 
The Tories, whose strength lay in the landed gentry 
and rural clergy, were very unpopular, being sup¬ 
posed to desire a second restoration of the Stuarts. 
The Whigs, in consequence, monopolized office dur¬ 
ing the reigns of George I and George II. 

Whig rule came to an end ten years after the acces¬ 
sion of George III in 1760. It was the Tory ministry 
of Lord North which plunged Great Britain into the 
contest with the Thirteen Colonies. William Pitt, 
the Younger, who became head of the government 
shortly after the fall of Lord North’s ministry, reor- 

472 


473 


Parliamentary Reform 

ganized the Tory Party. It remained in office during 
the remainder of George Ill’s reign and that of his 
son and successor, George IV (1820-1830). 

A hundred years ago Great Britain was still an 
undemocratic country. The House of Lords, com¬ 
posed of nobles and bishops who sat by hereditary 
right or by royal appointment, continued to be a 
stronghold of aristocracy. Even the House of Com¬ 
mons, the more popular branch of Parliament, rep¬ 
resented only a fraction of the British people. 

According to the representative system which had 
been fixed in medieval times, each of the counties 
(shires) and most of the town (boroughs) of Great 
Britain and Ireland had two members in the House 
of Commons. Representation, however, bore no 
relation to the size of the population in either casei 
a large county and a small county, a large town and 
a small town, sent the same number of representa¬ 
tives. Some flourishing places, such as Manchester, 
Leeds, Birmingham, and Sheffield, which had grown 
up since the IVIiddle Ages, were without representa¬ 
tion. Other places—the so-called “rotten” boroughs 
—continued to enjoy representation long after they 
had so decayed that nothing remained of them but 
a single house, a green mound, a park, or a ruined 
wall. The electoral system was equally antiquated. 
Only landowners could vote in the counties, while in 
many of the boroughs a handful of well-to-do people 
alone exercised the franchise. Not more than five per 
cent of all the adult males in Great Britain had the 
right to vote. There were some “pocket” boroughs, 
where a rich man, generally a nobleman, had 
acquired the privilege of naming the representatives. 

The restricted franchise in the boroughs made it 




474 


The United Kingdom 


easy to corrupt elections to the House of Commons. 
Bribery of voters reached its height under George 
III, who fostered the system in order to strengthen 
his own authority. Not only were individual voters 
bribed, but “rotten” and “pocket” boroughs were 
often sold outright to the highest bidder. Thanks 
to the custom of open polling, voters in the counties 
were particularly subject to intimidation by land¬ 
lords, employers, and officials. The evils of bribery 
arid coercion were increased in borough and county 
alike by the drunkenness and turmoil which prevailed 
during elections. 

Efforts to improve these conditions began in the 
eighteenth century, but for a long time accomplished 
nothing. Sober people, alarmed by the events in 
France, coupled parliamentary reform with revolu¬ 
tionary designs against the government. After 1815, 
however, the Reign of Terror and Napoleon Bona¬ 
parte were no longer bogeys; and public opinion 
grew steadily more hostile to a system of representa¬ 
tion which excluded so many educated, prosperous 
members of the middle class from political power. 
Great Whig nobles also espoused the liberal cause 
and made it a party question. The Tories, on their 
side, stood rocklike against anything which savored 
of democracy. The duke of Wellington, who had 
become the Tory prime minister, even declared that 
nothing better than the existing system could be 
devised “by the wit of man.” This obstinate refusal 
to make even the slightest concessions caused the 
downfall of the duke’s ministry. In 1830, the year of 
the “July Revolution” in France, the Whigs returned 
to office, under pledge to introduce a measure for 
parliamentary reform. 


Parliamentary Reform 475 

The events which followed cast much light on 
British methods of government. The Reform Bill 
introduced by Earl Grey, the Whig prime minister, 
failed to pass the House of Commons. Parliament 
was then dissolved, in order to test the sentiment of 
the country by means of a general election. “The 
bill, the whole bill, and nothing but the bill,” cried 
the reforming Whigs. They triumphed, and another 
Reform Bill passed the new House of Commons by a 
large majority. The House of Lords, staunchly 
Tory, threw it out. During the next session yet a 
third bill was put through the Commons. The Lords 
insisted upon amendments which the ministry would 
not accept. Meanwhile, popular excitement rose to 
fever pitch, and in one mass meeting after another the 
Lords were denounced as a corrupt and selfish oli¬ 
garchy. Earl Grey advised the king (William IV) 
to create enough Whig peers to carry the measure in 
the upper chamber. The king refused to do so; the 
premier and his associates resigned; and the duke of 
Wellington tried without success to form another 
Tory ministry. Earl Grey then resumed office, hav¬ 
ing secured the royal promise to create the necessary 
peers. This extreme step was not taken, however, 
for the mere threat of it brought the Lords to terms. 
In 1832 the long-debated bill quietly became law. 

The First Reform Act achieved two results. It 
suppressed most of the “rotten” and “pocket” 
boroughs, thus setting free a large number of seats 
in the House of Commons for distribution among 
towns and counties which were either unrepresented 
or insufficiently represented. It also gave the fran¬ 
chise to many persons who owned or rented buildings 
in the towns or who rented land in the country. 


476 


The United Kingdom 


Workingmen and agricultural laborers—the majority 
of the population—still remained without a vote. 

The First Reform Act effected a momentous 
change in British politics. The Revolution of 1688- 
1689 had transferred the chief power from the sov¬ 
ereign to the upper class, or landed aristocracy. The 
parliamentary revolution of 1832 shifted the balance 
to the middle class of merchants, manufacturers, and 
professional men—the Continental bourgeoisie. 
Henceforth for many years it continued to rule Great 
Britain. 

The events of 1832 have another significance as 
well. They proved that the Tory aristocracy, en¬ 
trenched in the House of Lords, could not perma¬ 
nently defy the popular will, that “it was impossible 
for the whisper of a faction to prevail against the 
voice of a nation.” The Lords yielded, however 
ungraciously, to public opinion. Their action meant 
that for the future Great Britain would progress by 
peaceful, orderly reform, rather than by revolution. 
That country is the only considerable state in Europe 
which during the past century has not undergone a 
revolutionary change of government. 

Political Democracy, 1832-1867 

Hie passage of the First Reform Act profoundly 
affected the two historic parties. The Whigs 
appeared henceforth as the particular champions of 
all liberal, progressive measures. They soon dis¬ 
carded their old name and began to call themselves 
Liberals. The Tories, now known as Conservatives, 
were in theory opposed to further changes, but when 
holding office generally went as far as their opponents 
in the direction of reform. Both parties realized that 



Political Democracy 477 

the time had come for Great Britain to correct old 
abuses and to modernize her institutions. 

The next thirty-five years constituted a veritable 
era of reform in almost every field. During these 
years Parliament abolished slavery throughout the 
British Empire, enacted laws to reduce pauperism, 
passed legislation ameliorating conditions of employ¬ 
ment in factories and mines, modified the harshness 
of the criminal code, began to establish a system of 
popular education, and adopted free trade. Nothing 
was done, however, toward further extension of the 
suffrage. 

The failure of Parliament to enfranchise the 
masses produced much popular discontent, and dur¬ 
ing the early years of Queen Victoria’s reign the 
movement known as Chartism began to make head¬ 
way among workingmen. The Chartists derived 
their name from a charter of liberties which they 
proposed to secure. It demanded Six Points: (1) 
universal manhood suffrage; (2) secret voting; (3) 
equal electoral districts; (4) removal of the property 
qualifications for membership in Parliament; (5) 
payment of members of Parliament; and (6) annual 
parliamentary elections. All but the last of these 
demands, which seemed so radical at the time, have 
since been granted. 

The “February Revolution” in Paris, reverberating 
in London, led to preparations for a great Chartist 
demonstration. Six million persons, it was an¬ 
nounced, had signed a petition for the Six Points, 
and half a million men, many of them armed, made 
ready to carry it to Parliament. The government took 
alarm and put a large force of special constables, 
under the command of the aged but still courageous 


478 


The United Kingdom 


duke of Wellington, to protect life and property. 
The government’s firm attitude, coupled with a down¬ 
pour of rain on the day appointed for the procession, 
dampened the spirits as well as the bodies of the 
Chartists, and they dispersed. Their monster peti¬ 
tion, upon examination, was found to contain less than 
half the boasted number of signatures, and of these 
many were fictitious. This exposure discredited the 
whole Chartist movement. 

The collapse of Chartism did not end the agitation 
for a more democratic Great Britain. The popular 
movement there owed much to the outcome of the 
American Civil War, which was regarded as a tri¬ 
umph for democracy. It began to seem anomalous 
that British workingmen should be denied the vote 
about to be granted negroes in the United States. 
Two great statesmen—one a Liberal and the other 
a Conservative—perceived this clearly, and each 
became an advocate of further parliamentary reform. 
The two statesmen were Gladstone and Disraeli. 

William Ewart Gladstone, the son of a rich Liver¬ 
pool merchant of Scottish birth, had been educated 
at aristocratic Eton and Oxford. When only twenty- 
four years old, he entered Parliament from a “pocket” 
borough. Gladstone’s rise was rapid, for he had 
wealth, family influence, an attractive personality, 
wide knowledge both of books and of men, enormous 
energy, and oratorical gifts of a high order. All 
things considered, no Englishman of Gladstone’s 
generation equaled him as a public speaker. His 
voice, singularly clear and far-reaching, his eagle 
glance, his command of language, and his earnestness 
made him an impressive figure, whether in the House 
of Commons or on the platform. This “rising hope 



Political Democracy 479 

of the stern, unbending Tories,” in time disappointed 
his political backers by joining the Liberal Party It 

was as a Liberal that Gladstone four times became 
prime minister of Great Britain. 

Benjamin Disraeli belonged to a converted Jewish 
family of London. His father, a well-known author, 

ad him educated privately. He first appeared before 
the public as a novelist, and in one book after another 
proceeded to heap ridicule upon the upper classes. 
Entering Parliament as an independent radical, 

Disraeli’s florid speech and eccentricities of dress_he 

wore bright-colored waistcoats and decked himself 
with rings—at first only provoked derision. Gradu¬ 
ally, however, the young man’s cleverness and courage 
overcame the prejudice against him. His own radical 
viewpoint altered, and before long he became a Con¬ 
servative, posing henceforth as a staunch defender of 
the Crown, the Established Church, and the aristoc¬ 
racy. Disraeli proved to be an expert parliamen¬ 
tarian, always formidable in debate. For thirty years 
he absolutely dominated the Conservative Party and 

twice he realized a once “wild ambition” to be prime 
minister. 

In 1866 Gladstone, then leader of the House of 
Commons, introduced a measure for franchise reform. 
Such old-fashioned Liberals as were opposed to fur¬ 
ther concessions to democracy combined with the 
Conservatives to defeat the bill and overthrow the 
ministry. The Conservatives then returned to power, 
with Disraeli the real, though not the titular, chief 
of the party. The Conservative ministry was even 
less friendly to reform than its Liberal predecessor, 
but popular demonstrations throughout the country 
convinced Disraeli that an extension of the suffrage 


480 


The United Kingdom 


could no longer be delayed. He decided “to dish the 
Whigs” by granting it himself. This was done in 
1867. 

The Second Reform Act gave the vote in the bor¬ 
oughs to all householders, whatever the value of their 
property, and to all lodgers who paid ten pounds or 
more a year for unfurnished rooms. By thus enfran¬ 
chising workingmen, it almost doubled the electorate. 
The only considerable class still without the vote was 
that of the agricultural laborers. 

Political Democracy, 1867-1918 

Disraeli expected that the Second Reform Act 
would unite under the Conservative banner both 
aristocrats and working people against the great 
middle class represented by the Liberals. He was 
disappointed. The next election showed that the 
enfranchised workingmen preferred Gladstone’s Lib¬ 
eral leadership. In 1872 Gladstone, who had now 
become premier, secured the passage of a bill pro¬ 
viding for the secret or Australian ballot, in place of 
open elections. The Ballot Act did away with the 
old-time corruption and intimidation in elections. 

During his second ministry Gladstone carried 
democratic reform still further by the passage of the 
Third Reform Act. It made the county franchise 
practically identical with that of the boroughs, thus 
giving the vote to agricultural laborers. Most Con¬ 
servatives and many Liberals thought it dangerous to 
go to such lengths. But Gladstone answered, “I take 
my stand upon the broad principle that the enfran¬ 
chisement of capable citizens, be they few or be they 
many—and if they be many so much the better—is 
an addition to the strength of the state.” 



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Political Democracy 481 

The United Kingdom after 1884 enjoyed virtually 
universal manhood suffrage, such as had already been 
established in France (1848), Germany (1871), and 
the United States. But the demand for “vote’s for 
women,” which began to be heard from about this 
time, only roused the anger or ridicule of Liberals 
and Conservatives alike. Nevertheless, woman 
suffrage organizations were formed, debates were 
held on the platform and in the newspapers, and 
equal franchise bills were introduced into Parlia¬ 
ment. The movement for many years made slow 
progress, though some women received the right to 
vote in local elections. 

The World War gave women the vote in the 
United Kingdom. Their patriotic service in the hos¬ 
pitals, in munition factories, and on the farms had its 
reward in 1918, when both parties in Parliament as¬ 
sented to an Equal Franchise Act. This measure 
ranks in importance with the three acts of 1832. 1867, 
and 1884. It not only confers the franchise for the 
House of Commons upon substantially every man 
over twenty-one years of age in Great Britain and 
Ireland, but also confers it upon every woman over 
thirty years of age who has hitherto voted in local 
elections or is the wife of a local elector. There are 
now nearly twenty-two million voters in the United 
Kingdom, or almost one-half of the population. 

After almost a century of gradual reform Great 
Britain has thus definitely abandoned the old theory, 
rooted in feudal conceptions, of the franchise as a 
privilege attached to the ownership of property, 
especially land. Voting henceforth becomes a right 
to be enjoyed by every citizen, whether man or 
woman. A general election for members of Parlia- 


482 


The United Kingdom 


ment is now an appeal to a responsible people, and 
the will of the majority of the people must be carried 
out by Parliament. Politically, Great Britain ranks 
among the most democratic of modern countries. 

Government of the United Kingdom 

The written constitution of the United Kingdom 
of Great Britain and Ireland consists, first, of royal 
charters, second, of parliamentary statutes, third, of 
the Common Law as expressed in court decisions, and 
fourth, of international treaties. Besides such docu¬ 
ments, it includes a large mass of customs and prece¬ 
dents, which, though unwritten, are none the less 
binding on Crown and Parliament. The British 
constitution, easily modified and ever growing with 
the increase of law and legislation, affords a sharp 
contrast to that of the United States, which can be 
amended only slowly and with difficulty. The one is 
a “flexible” constitution, the other, a “rigid” consti¬ 
tution. 

As far as appearances go, the sovereign of Great 
Britain and Ireland is a divine-right monarch. Coins 
and proclamations still recite that he rules “by the 
giace of God (dei gratia ), and the opening words 
of the British national anthem are “God Save Our 
Lord and King. ’ He is also, as far as appearances 
go, an absolute monarch. Whatever the government 
does, from the arrest of a criminal to the declaration 
of a war, is done in his name. But every one knows 
that the British sovereign now only acts by and with 
the advice of his responsible ministers. Should 
George V attempt to revive the absolutism of James 
II, he would meet the fate of James II. 

This figurehead king occupies, nevertheless, a use- 


Government of the United Kingdom 483 

ful place in the Birtish governmental system. As the 
representative of the nation, he often exercises a 
restraining, moderating influence upon public affairs, 
especially through his consultations with politicians 
of both parties. He himself stands above party. A 
common loyalty to the Crown, as an ancient, dignified, 
and permanent institution, also helps to bind together 
the self-governing commonwealths of the British 
Empire. It is a symbol of imperial unity such as 
could scarcely be afforded by an elective and con¬ 
stantly changing Presidency. The rising tide of 
republicanism has thus failed to affect the British 
monarchy, and the personal popularity of Queen 
Victoria, Edward VII, and George V seems to have 
established it more solidly than a century ago in the 
esteem of their subjects. 

British legal theory makes Parliament consist of 
the Crown, the House of Lords, and the House of 
Commons. The share of the Crown is now limited 
to expressing assent to a bill after its passage by the 
Commons and the Lords. Such assent the king must 
give. The royal veto has not been expressly taken 
away, but Queen Anne in 1707 was the last sovereign 
to exercise this former prerogative. Nor may the 
courts set aside an act of Parliament as unconstitu¬ 
tional, for every statute is a part of the constitution. 
An American student, accustomed to the water-tight 
division of powers between President, Congress, and 
the federal courts, finds it hard to appreciate the legal 
omnipotence of the British Parliament. The only 

check upon it is the political good sense of the British 
people. 

The House of Lords contains more than seven 
hundred members: the Lords Spiritual (archbishops 


484 


The United Kingdom 


and bishops) and the Lords Temporal (princes of 
the royal blood, all English peers, and a certain num¬ 
ber of Scotch and Irish peers). There are also four 
law lords, who, with the Lord Chancellor, form the 
highest court of appeal for certain cases. The Lord 
Chancellor presides over the House of Lords. The 
power to create new peers belongs to the Crown, but 
usually the prime minister decides who shall be 
selected for this honor. Distinction in any field is 
frequently recognized by the grant of a peerage. 
Lawyers, authors, artists, scientists, and generals rub 
shoulders with gentlemen landlords, capitalists, and 
politicians on the floor of the House of Lords. 

The House of Lords was the dominant chamber 
until the passage of the First Reform Act. Since 
then it has been understood that the Lords might not 
oppose the Commons on any measure supported by a 
majority of the electorate. This purely conventional 
restriction was written into the constitution by the 
Parliament Act of 1911. The Lords agreed to it only 
when confronted, as in 1832, with the prospect of 
being “ swamped ” by a large number of newly cre¬ 
ated Liberal peers. The Parliament Act deprives 
the upper chamber of all control of money bills, that 
is, bills levying taxes or making appropriations. Such 
measures become laws one month after being sent 
from the Commons to the Lords, whether accepted 
by the latter or not. The act further provides that 
every other bill, passed by the Commons in three suc¬ 
cessive sessions (extending over two years at least) 
and rejected by the Lords at each of the three sessions, 
shall become law. The House of Lords is thus left 
with only a “suspensive veto” of legislation. 

The hereditary House of Lords is so frankly an 


Government of the United Kingdom 485 

anachronism in democratic Great Britain that from 
time to time various proposals have been made for 
its “mending or ending.” Many reformers would 
like to see it become an elective upper chamber like 
the French and American Senates. Some radicals 
would abolish the House of Lords altogether, thus 
doing away with the bicameral system. There seems 
reason to believe, however, that in one form or 
another it will survive for many years. Birth and 
family still count for much in British society, and the 
average citizen retains a profound respect for the 
aristocracy. 

The House of Commons consists of seven hundred 
and seven members, chosen by universal suffrage from 
equal electoral districts in Great Britain and in Ire¬ 
land. Commoners serve for five years, which is the 
maximum life of a single Parliament. This period is 
curtailed whenever the Crown, on the advice of its 
ministers, dissolves the House of Commons and orders 
a new general election. Voting does not take place 
on one day throughout the United Kingdom; it may 
extend over as much as two weeks. Nor need a candi¬ 
date be a resident of the district which he proposes 
to represent. Defeat in one constituency, therefore, 
does not necessarily exclude a man from Parliament; 
he may always “stand” for another constituency. 
Prominent politicians, as a rule, retain seats in the 
House of Commons year after year. The property 
qualification for members of the House of Commons 
has been abolished, and since 1911 they have received 
salaries. 

Parliament works through a committee known as 
the cabinet. This body, which developed during the 
eighteenth century, exists purely by custom and has 


486 


The United Kingdom 


no place whatever in the written constitution of the 
United Kingdom. The cabinet usually includes about 
twenty commoners and lords, who belong to the party 
in power. During the World War, however, a “coali¬ 
tion” cabinet, representing both parties, carried on 
the government. Members of the cabinet are selected 
by a caucus of the majority party in Parliament, al¬ 
ways, of course, with the approval of the prime min¬ 
ister, who is the recognized leader of the party. The 
cabinet acts together in all matters, thus presenting a 
united front to Parliament and the country. 

1 he cabinet shapes legislation, determines policy, 
and administers the laws. Tn secret sessions it drafts 
the more important measures to be laid before the 
House of Commons. That body may amend bills 
thus presented to it, but amendments are usually few 
and unimportant. Should a cabinet measure fail to 
pass the C ommons, or should the Commons vote a 
resolution of “no confidence,” custom requires the 
cabinet to resign or “go to the country.” In the 
former case, the king “sends for” the leader of the 
opposite party and invites him to form a cabinet 
which will have the support of the Commons. In 
the latter case, the king dissolves Parliament and calls 
a general election. The return of a majority favor¬ 
able to the cabinet permits it to remain in office; 
otherwise the prime minister and his associates give 
way to a cabinet formed by the opposition. 

However powerful, the cabinet is not an irrespon¬ 
sible oligarchy. Public opinion prevails in Great 
Britain as in other democratic countries. Proposals 
foi new legislation, as a rule, are thoroughly dis¬ 
cussed in newspapers and on the platform before 
and after their submission by the cabinet to the House 




















CHOIR OF WESTMINSTER ABBEY 

The church formerly attached to the Benedictine abbey of St. Peter in Westminster 
was built in the 13th century, upon the site of an earlier church raised by Edward the 
Confessor in the nth century. Since the Norman Conquest all but one of the English sov¬ 
ereigns have been crowned here, and until the time of George III, it served as their last rest¬ 
ing place. The abbey is now England’s Hall of Fame, where many of her distinguished 
statesmen, warriors, poets, artists, and scientists are buried. 




















































































The Irish Question 487 

of Commons. No cabinet would think of backing a 
measure which in its judgment was not favored by 
the great body of the electorate. As has been noted, 
general elections must be held at least every five years 
and may be held at any time in order to secure an 
expression of the popular will. Furthermore, a 
defeat at a general election or a defeat or vote of 
censure in the House of Commons is not always neces¬ 
sary for the downfall of a cabinet. The prime minis¬ 
ter sometimes resigns office even when he retains a 
majority in the Commons, if he feels that his policies 
are no longer acceptable to the country at large. 
Public opinion thus affects all legislative measures 
and determines the rise and fall of cabinets. 

The Liberals and Conservatives continue to control 
Parliament in the twentieth as in the nineteenth cen¬ 
tury. The last general election (December, 1918) 
returned a large number of Laborites, some of them 
trade unionists and others socialists. From the middle 
’eighties the Irish Nationalists, who advocated Home 
Rule for Ireland, formed an important minority 
party, usually in alliance with the Liberals. In the 
last election, however, the Nationalists were swal¬ 
lowed by the Sinn Feiners, who demanded a com¬ 
pletely independent Ireland. 

The Irish Question 

The English entered Ireland during the reign of 
Henry II in the twelfth century. They first occupied 
the region around Dublin, which received the name 
of the Pale. Later sovereigns, especially Henry VIII 
and Queen Elizabeth, extended English dominion 
throughout the island and sought to anglicize it by 
introducing the English language, the Common Law, 


4 88 


The United Kingdom 



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Ireland 

the iron hand of Oliver Cromwell to bring peace to 
the distracted country. At the time of the “Glorious 
Revolution’' the Roman Catholic Irish espoused the 
side of James II, but William of Orange (William 
III) completely defeated James II at the battle of 


and the Anglican Church. The Irish, however, 
would not give up their own Celtic speech, their 
tribal customs, and their Roman Catholic faith. Ire¬ 
land constantly seethed with rebellion, and it required 


10 R 

The English Pale (Time of Henry VIII) 


j The English Pale (Time of Charles 1) 


[ ~1 Plantations of English and Scots 

(Time of Elizabeth aqd the first two Stuarts) 


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I he Irish Question 489 

the Boyne in 1690. For the next century Ireland 
remained quiescent under alien rule. 

The government of England in its efforts to subdue 
Ireland early adopted the policy of colonizing parts 
of it with immigrants, who would be more tractable 
ffian the natives. Early in the reign of James I 
Protestant Scotch and English were settled in the 
province of Ulster, where they received ample estates 
and privileges. After Cromwell’s pacification of 
Ireland, other “plantations” of Englishmen took 
place in Leinster and Munster. William III subse¬ 
quently rewarded his adherents by granting them 
more than a million acres of Irish soil. 

These confiscations gave rise to an acute agrarian 
problem in Ireland. Much of the country belonged 
to the heirs and successors of the Englishmen who 
had received Irish estates. They usually lived in 
England, seldom or never visited Ireland, and took 
no interest in the welfare of the Irish tenantry. The 
management of their property was left to hard¬ 
hearted agents, who seized every opportunity to in¬ 
crease the rents of tenants. 

Such opportunities constantly arose. Thefe were 
few ways of earning a living in Ireland except from 
the soil, and keen competition among the peasantry 
for farms forced up rentals to an exorbitant amount. 
The landlord, as a rule, received everything above a 
bare subsistence for the tenant and his family. “Rack- 
renting” increased the misery of the peasants. All 
improvements on a farm had to be made by the tenant, 
but if he made them his rent was immediately raised. 
Refusal to pay it meant eviction from his cottage 
home. No wonder that under this system the soil was 
wretchedly cultivated. 


490 


The United Kingdom 


Year after year Irish peasants sank deeper in 
poverty. The high rents and the scanty yield of the 
ill-used soil kept them constantly on the verge of 
starvation. They did starve whenever there was a 
failure of the potato crop, on which they chiefly 
relied for food. Conditions were worst during the 
Potato Famine of 1846-1847. Eighty thousand per¬ 
sons, it is estimated, perished at this time, in spite of 
charity and government aid. The survivors emi¬ 
grated in great numbers to America. Within four 
years the population of the country decreased by more 
than a million. The decline continued to the end of 
the nineteenth centry, until Ireland had lost by 
mortality and emigration half of its people. 

Many years elapsed before the British government 
made a resolute attempt to remedy agrarian distress 
in Ireland. Gladstone’s Land Act in 1881 marks the 
first constructive legislation to meet the Irish demand 
for the three “F’s”—fair rent (a rent fixed by public 
authority instead of by competition), fixity of tenure 
(the right of a peasant to hold his land as long as he 
paid rent), and free sale (his right to sell to his suc¬ 
cessor any improvements made by him). The Land 
Purchase Acts, passed by the Conservative Party in 
1891 and 1903, created a state fund from which ten¬ 
ants could borrow money on easy terms to buy their 
holdings. Thousands of Irishmen have already 
availed themselves of this opportunity to get rid of 
the hated landlords and become independent propri- 
* etors. The agrarian problem in Ireland bids fair 
soon to be solved. 

The religious problem has already been solved. 
Ireland, it will be remembered, did not become Pro¬ 
testant at the time of the Reformation, and to this 



49 i 


The Irish Question 

day three-fourths of the population remain attached 
to the Roman Catholic faith. Nevertheless, Irish 
Catholics had to pay tithes for the support of the 

nghcan Church in Ireland, until after the middle 
of the nineteenth century. Gladstone’s first ministry 
removed this grievance by disestablishing the Angli¬ 
can Church in Ireland. Disestablishment meant that 
reland would no longer have a state church to which 

all the people, irrespective of their religious beliefs 
were obliged to contribute. * 

The third problem is that of Home Rule. After 
the Act of Union in 1801, Ireland continued to be 
governed by the British Parliament, in which the 
nglish and Scots held an overwhelming majority, 
rishmen objected to this arrangement and demanded 
the restoration of the former Irish Parliament, which 
sat in Dublin. The first leader of the Home Rule 
agitation was the celebrated orator and patriot, Dan¬ 
iel O’Connell. His failure to secure by constitu¬ 
tional means the repeal of the Act of Union led to 
the formation of a Young Ireland Party, which 

unsuccessfully imitated the Continental revolutions 
of 1848. 

During the ’seventies and ’eighties of the last cen¬ 
tury the cause of Home Rule found its ablest 
advocate in Charles Stewart Parnell. He was a 
landlord and a Protestant, but nevertheless won the 
enthusiastic support of all Irish patriots. Parnell 
took the leadership of the Irish Nationalists, a polit¬ 
ical party devoted to Home Rule. When Gladstone • 
entered upon his third ministry in 1886, the National¬ 
ists were numerous enough to hold the balance of 
power in the House of Commons. Gladstone could 
only secure their support by introducing a Home 


492 


The United Kingdom 


Rule Bill. So bitter was the opposition to it that 
nearly a hundred Liberals deserted their party and 
joined the Conservatives, thus defeating the measure. 
In 1893 th e “Grand Old Man,” now premier for the 
fourth time, brought in his second Home Rule Bill. 
It passed the Commons but met defeat in the Lords. 
Mr. Asquith’s Liberal ministry subsequently intro¬ 
duced a third Home Rule Bill. Having thrice 
passed the House of Commons, it became a law in 
1914, notwithstanding its rejection by the House of 
Lords. The outbreak of the World War, however, 
suspended the operation of the measure. 

Meanwhile, an agitation in favor of complete inde¬ 
pendence made rapid progress everywhere in Ire¬ 
land except in Ulster. It owed much to a group of 
quiet scholars, who devoted themselves to the revival 
of Irish literature, the old Irish language (Erse), 
and the sentiment of Irish nationality. This national 
movement gave birth to the Sinn Fein Party. The 
members insisted upon the entire separation of Ire¬ 
land from Great Britain. In the spring of 1916 they 
allied themselves with radical workingmen of Dub¬ 
lin, and proclaimed an Irish Republic. British 
troops put down the insurrection and executed some 
of its leaders. Though the Sinn Feiners secured 
nearly all the Irish representation in Parliament at 
the last general election, they refused to take their 
seats at Westminster. Members of the organization 
entered in 1921 upon negotiations with Great Britain 
in the effort to secure for Ireland, if not indepen¬ 
dence, at least self-government. 

* 

These negotiations were crowned with success. In 
1922 Parliament ratified and George V signed a 
treaty by which the whole of Ireland, except Ulster, 


493 


The British Empire 

becomes the Irish Free State. It is to have the same 
constitutional status in the British Empire as Canada, 
Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa. Great 
Britain relinquishes all right to intervene in the inter¬ 
nal affairs of the country, though its foreign relations, 
like those of the other Dominions, will remain under 
British supervision and control. For the present 
Ulster has refused to join the Irish Free State. 

The British Empire 

The United Kingdom is the cradle and present 
center of the British Empire. That empire is of 
comparatively recent formation. In 1603 at the 
accession of James I, England did not possess a mile 
of foreign territory, excepting the Channel Islands. 
Since then imperial expansion has gone on in India, 
Africa, Australia, North America, and the islands - 
of the seas, until now the Union Jack floats over a 
quarter of the land surface of the globe. 

The British Empire, unlike most of the great 
empires of the past, does not stretch continuously on 
land. Its territorial possessions are found in every 
continent. Its trade routes and lines of communica¬ 
tion by steamship and submarine cable lie across 
thousands of miles of water. Without sea-power, the 
empire would speedily break into fragments, some 
becoming independent countries and others being 
annexed by their stronger neighbors. 

Sea-power depends primarily on superiority of 
naval force, which the British secured by their mari¬ 
time warfare with the Dutch and French in the 
seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries. 
Sea-power is also dependent to some degree upon the 
existence of naval bases, where warships may obtain 


494 


The United Kingdom 


coal and other supplies. Great Britain has them at 
convenient intervals on nearly all the great trade 
routes. Gibraltar, Malta, and Cyprus give her con¬ 
trol of the Mediterranean. Suez, Aden, and various 
islands in the Indian Ocean guard the shortest route 
to India and Australia. In the Far East she has 
Singapore, Hongkong, Weihaiwei, and other impor¬ 
tant ports. Her African stations include the islands 
of Ascension, St. Helena, Mauritius, and Seychelles. 
In American waters the Bermudas and the British 
West Indies provide stations for military and com¬ 
mercial purposes, all the more valuable since the 
completion of the Panama Canal. These naval bases 
are the real sea-links of the empire. 

The population of the British Empire, excluding 
the United Kingdom, is estimated at 400,000,000. 
Of these, about 20,000,000 are “colonials,” the 
descendants of English, French, Dutch, and Spanish 
immigrants. The other inhabitants are “natives”— 
a comprehensive term to include the peoples of India, 
together with Malays, Chinese, Polynesians, Arabs, 
negroes, and American Indians. All the races of 
man, all stages of culture from savagery to civiliza¬ 
tion, all the principal religions, and nearly all the 
principal languages, of mankind are represented in 
the British possessions. 

The word empire usually suggests the autocratic 
rule of conquerors over subjects. Autocracy indeed 
exists in the British Empire, for the “natives ” who 
comprise nineteen-twentieths of the population, have 
as yet little or no voice in the management of their 
own concerns. On the whole, Great Britain rules 
them wisely, justly, even benevolently. She maintains 
peace—the Pax Britannica —keeps domestic order, 



























































































































































495 


The British Empire 

abolishes such evil customs as slavery, cannibalism, 
and human sacrifice, introduces systems of education 
and sanitation, and spends large sums for the develop¬ 
ment of the natural resources of each possession. 
More and more it becomes the conscious purpose of 
Great Britain to train the more advanced of her 
native subjects in democracy, so that they may ulti¬ 
mately take a place among the great self-governing 
peoples of the empire. 

As respects government, India stands by itself. 
British India, which includes two-thirds of the area 
of the country and three-fourths of the population, 
is ruled directly from London through a cabinet offi¬ 
cer called the Secretary of State for India. The 
actual administration rests in the hands of an appoint¬ 
ive viceroy, assisted by two councils and the officials 
of the Indian Civil Service. The remainder of India 
consists of native or feudatory states, about seven hun¬ 
dred in number. These continue to be ruled by their 
own princes, under the oversight and protection of 
Great Britain. 

Besides the feudatory states of India, Great Brit¬ 
ain has several protectorates, chiefly in Africa. She 
also possesses certain spheres of influence in Africa 
and other parts of the world, where foreign coun¬ 
tries agree not to acquire territory or control, either 
by treaty or by annexation. 

In the seventeenth century trading companies 
chartered by the Crown established nearly all the 
American colonies of Great Britain and laid the 
foundation of her Indian dominions. In the nine¬ 
teenth century similar chartered trading companies 
carried the British flag into the interior of Africa 
and among the islands of the Pacific. The British 


496 


The United Kingdom 


South Africa Company, organized by Cecil Rhodes, 
still controls the vast tract of territory called Rho¬ 
desia. Similarly, the British North Borneo Com¬ 
pany governs North Borneo, though this country has 
now been declared a protectorate. 

The most numerous group of British possessions is 
composed of the Crown colonies. They are all under 
governors appointed by the Crown. In a few Crown 
colonies the governor exercises entire authority, both 
legislative and executive; in the others he is assisted 
by councils which are sometimes nominated by the 
Crown and sometimes selected by the colonists. The 
Crown colonies lie chiefly within the tropics and con¬ 
tain relatively few English-speaking inhabitants. 
Examples are the British West Indies, British Gui¬ 
ana, Sierra Leone, Nigeria, Ceylon, and the Straits 
Settlements. 

The group of self-governing colonies, or Domin¬ 
ions, is small in number, but it includes Canada, 
Newfoundland, Australia, New Zealand, and South 
Africa. Their government closely parallels that of 
the United Kingdom. In each colony the Crown is 
represented by a governor or governor-general; the 
House of Lords, by an upper chamber; and the 
House of Commons, by a popularly elected assembly. 
Each one has also a prime minister and the cabinet 
system. Great Britain controls the foreign relations 
of these five colonies, but otherwise allows them prac¬ 
tically complete independence in matters of legisla¬ 
tion. Without interference, they tax themselves, 
impose tariff duties, even on British goods, control 
immigration, raise their own armies, support their 
own navies, and have their own national flags. They 
are, in fact, “colonial nations.” 


COLONIAL POSSESSIONS OF EUROPEAN POWERS 



497 


Greenland 











































































































498 


The United Kingdom 


The nineteenth century was well advanced before 
Great Britain learned the right policy to adopt 
toward the “colonials” in North America, Austra¬ 
lasia, and South Africa. The rising tide of demo¬ 
cratic sentiment, as seen in the reform of parliament¬ 
ary representation, more than anything else stirred 
the British people to extend full rights to their col¬ 
onies. Political emancipation at home had a natural 
result in political emancipation abroad. Canada first 
received self-government in the 'forties of the last 
century, and since then Great Britain has cordially 
bestowed the same precious gift upon her Australa¬ 
sian and South African dominions. Though virtu¬ 
ally independent, they continue to enjoy the protec¬ 
tion of the British Empire and to share in its glory. 

This change of British colonial policy, which has 
converted so much of the empire into a common¬ 
wealth of free states, is one of the outstanding facts 
of modern history. The vast extent of the Domin¬ 
ions, their enormous resources, and their rapidly 
growing population give promise of unlimited devel¬ 
opment in the future. They form a Greater Britain 
for the perpetuation through the ages of the lan¬ 
guage, laws, and institutions of the mother country. 

The British Empire, as at present constituted, is a 
complex and apparently inharmonious organization 
of protectorates, C rown colonies, self-governing 
Dominions, and Indian states. The empire lacks a 
central body representing all its members and capable 
of united action. Steps in the direction of closer 
union have been taken by means of imperial confer¬ 
ences. The first was held at London in 1887, on the 
occasion of Queen Victorians Jubilee celebration of 
the fiftieth anniversary of her accession to the throne, 


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The British Empire 

and was attended by representatives of the Domin¬ 
ions. Representatives of India also appeared at the 
last conference in 1917. Naval and military defense, 
tariffs, and other matters of common concern are 
discussed at these periodical gatherings. They make, 
therefore, for a better understanding between Great 
Britain and her dependencies. Further steps toward 

uniting the British Empire will doubtless be taken 
in the future. 

But the machinery of federation is a secondary 
matter, as long as the British Empire is one in spirit. 
The defects of its body are compensated for by the 
unity of its soul. The real strength of the bonds 
between Great Britain and her children overseas was 
first shown during the Boer War of 1899, when they 
rallied loyally to her support. During the World 
War both “colonials” and “natives” made huge con¬ 
tributions in money, food, ships, and men to Great 
Britain in her hour of need. The British Empire, 
in the words of Edmund Burke, is held together “by 
the close affection which grows from common names, 
from kindred blood, from similar privileges, and 
equal protection. These are ties, which, though light 
as air, are as strong as links of iron.” 


CHAPTER XV 


THE CONTINENTAL COUNTRIES 

The Third French Republic 

I HE third French Republic arose in the midst of 
war. Two days after the battle of Sedan, upon the 
receipt of a dispatch from Napoleon III announcing 
his army captured and himself a prisoner, Paris 
broke out in revolt. The empress Eugenie fled with 
her son to England, and the absent emperor was 
deposed as being responsible for the “ruin, invasion, 
and dismemberment of the country.” The revolu¬ 
tionists then set up a provisional government, re¬ 
publican in character. Similar action was taken 
independently in Lyons, Marseilles, Bordeaux, and 
other provincial cities. Paris in 1870 did not impose 
a republic upon the rest of the country; much of 
urban France declared spontaneously for it. The 
fact is important, as helping to explain why the Third 

Republic has lasted so much longer than its prede¬ 
cessors. 

The provisional government undertook the task of 
driving the Germans from French soil. Gambetta, 
the most prominent Republican leader, escaped from 
Paris in a balloon, roused the fighting spirit of the 
French people by his eloquence, and carried on for 
several months a brave but futile struggle against the 
German enemy. Equally futile were the diplomatic 
missions which Thiers made to one European court 
after another, to enlist foreign aid for France. Paris 

500 


Soi 


The Third French Republic 

could not be saved. After the fall of the capital a 
National Assembly ratified the humiliating Treaty of 
Frankfort with Germany. 

Peace had not been made before France was called 
upon to endure the agonies of a civil conflict. The 
Commune, or municipal council, of Paris fell into 
the hands of radical Republicans, socialists, and 
anarchists, who raised the red flag. They set up an 
independent government in the capital and even pro¬ 
posed to divide all France into a loose confederation 
of self-governing communes. The French people this 
time did not accept a revolution made in Paris. 
Loyal troops laid siege to the city, entered it after 
hard fighting, forced their way through the barri¬ 
cades, and suppressed the insurrection. The events 
of this “Bloody Week,” like those of the Reign of 
Terror, fill a lurid page in French history. 

The National Assembly in 1871 chose Thiers as 
“President of the Republic.” Nevertheless, several 
years elapsed before France became republican in 
much more than name. Two-thirds of the members 
of the National Assembly were really attached to 
monarchical principles. They soon forced Thiers to 
resign in favor of Marshal MacMahon, who was to 
make way for a king as soon as one should be chosen. 
The Monarchists, however, could not agree upon a 
satisfactory candidate for the throne. This situation 
played into the hands of Gambetta, who made it his 
mission to spread republican ideas among the con¬ 
servative Frenchmen. The result was that in 1875 
France adopted a republican constitution. 

The constitution of 1875 established a parliament¬ 
ary form of government, which resembles that of the 
United Kingdom. Legislative authority is vested in 


502 


The Continental Countries 


a Chamber of Deputies and a Senate. The two 
houses have substantially equal powers in introducing 
and amending bills, except money bills, which must 
emanate from the Chamber of Deputies. The Sen¬ 
ate has less importance than the Chamber of Depu¬ 
ties, because the premier and his associates in the 
Ministry are responsible to the latter body. The two 
chambers, meeting together, may revise the constitu¬ 
tion at any time. 

Executive authority is nominally vested in a pres¬ 
ident, who holds office for seven years. He may be 
re-elected, but this has happened only once. In order 
to prevent the rise of some future Louis Napoleon 
through popular election, the constitution prescribes 
that the president shall be chosen by a majority vote 
of the two branches of the legislature in joint session 
at Versailles. Any citizen, except a member of a 
French royal or imperial family, may offer himself 
for the presidency. The successful candidate is usu¬ 
ally a prominent senator or deputy. Whenever the 
presidential office becomes vacant by the death or 
resignation of the incumbent, his successor must be 
immediately chosen for the full term. Like the Brit¬ 
ish sovereign, the French president is largely a fig¬ 
urehead. He sends messages to parliament, receives 
foreign visitors, and presides at public functions, but 
his powers are very limited. 'The constitution pro¬ 
vides that every presidential act shall be counter¬ 
signed by some minister, who thereby assumes respon¬ 
sibility for it. When a change of ministry occurs, 
the president chooses a leading parliamentarian to 
be premier and the latter selects his own colleagues. 

The real executive in France, as in all parliament¬ 
ary countries, is the ministry or cabinet. Ministers 


After the painting by Leon Bonnat in 1876 

















The Third French Republic 503 

are almost always members of parliament. They may 
sit in both chambers and may address the legislators 
as often as seems desirable. A minister’s position is 
no sinecure. Not only must he conduct his depart¬ 
ment, but he must also be constantly before parlia¬ 
ment to present, explain, and defend his measures. 
Any senator or deputy may direct a formal question 
at a minister on the conduct of his office. Such an 
“interpellation” puts the ministry on the defensive 
and precipitates a brisk debate. If the Chamber of 
Deputies ends by passing a vote of “no confidence,” 
the ministry resigns. 

France has no real parties, but only political 
groups. 1 he elections of 1919? f° r instance, returned 
representatives of nine such groups to the Chamber 
of Deputies. The majority of members are Republi¬ 
cans of various shades of opinion, ranging from con¬ 
servatism to radicalism. There are several large 
groups of Socialists, as well as a few Monarchists, 
who would like to restore either the Bourbons or the 
Bonapartes. 

The existence of so many political groups explains 
why changes of ministry are frequent in France. No 
ministry can arise except one which represents a 
coalition {bloc) of several groups; no ministry can 
live long unless it keeps the support of several groups. 
In fact, it never does live long. France since 1875 
has averaged more than one ministry a year. A min¬ 
isterial change, however, is far less significant in 
France than in Great Britain, owing to the absence of 
one opposition party able to take the reins of govern¬ 
ment. Many members of a defeated ministry are 
found, as a rule, in the ministry which succeeds it, 
with perhaps a change of portfolios. Leading poli- 


5°4 The Continental Countries 

ticians may thus remain almost continuously in office 
for a long period. 

It should be noted, finally, that France has a per¬ 
manent body of nearly one million officials, who carry 
on their administrative duties unvexed by ministerial 
“crises.” This bureaucracy, or civil service, is espe¬ 
cially necessary in France, which, as contrasted with 
the United States* forms a highly centralized repub¬ 
lic. The systematic organization of the country into 
departements and their subdivisions by the French 
revolutionists and Napoleon has been retained to the 
present time, with the result that the government, 
both national and local, is directed from Paris. The 
state keeps representatives everywhere, and an hour 
after an order has been given at the capital it can be 
carried out in the remotest hamlet. Such centraliza¬ 
tion seems curious in so democratic a country as 
France, but it apparently satisfies the French demand 
for order and regularity in the conduct of public 
affairs. 

The most extensive French colonies are those in 
Africa. From Algeria, France has expanded east¬ 
ward over T unis, westward over Morocco, and south¬ 
ward into the Sahara. She also holds French So¬ 
maliland, a strategic colony at the entrance of the 
Red Sea, and the large island of Madagascar. In 
Asia she has retained her Indian possessions and has 
enlarged her territories in Indo-China. In Oceania 
she possesses New Caledonia and several archipela¬ 
goes. . The American colonies of France have not 
been increased since 1783. The area of this colonial 
empire is, roughly speaking, about twenty times that 
of France. Its population about equals that of the 
home country. 


Italy, Spain, Portugal and Belgium 505 

Nearly all the colonies lie within the tropics. The 
only countries having a considerable French popula¬ 
tion are Algeria, Tunis, and New Caledonia. It fol¬ 
lows that the value to France of her overseas posses¬ 
sions is mainly commercial, as a source of raw 
materials and a field for the investment of capital. 
The World War also demonstrated their value in 
furnishing native soldiers and laborers. The French 
government respects the institutions of the inhabi¬ 
tants and makes every effort to raise their moral and 
economic condition. None of the colonies is self- 
governing in the manner of the British Dominions, 
but some of them elect representatives to the French 
legislature. Algeria is treated in many respects, not 
as a colony, but as an integral part of France. 

Italy, Spain, Portugal, and Belgium 

The kingdom of Italy ranks next to the French 
Republic among the Latin states of contemporary 
Europe. The Italian constitution is the royal charter 
granted by Charles Albert of Sardinia in 1848, and 
between 1859 and 1870 extended by plebiscites to the 
entire peninsula. During these momentous years 
Italy thus gained both national unity and constitu¬ 
tional government. 

Italy has a well developed parliamentary system. 
Supreme authority resides in a parliament of two 
houses, consisting of an appointive Senate and an 
elective Chamber of Deputies. A ministry or cab¬ 
inet conducts the government, subject to the will of 
the Chamber of Deputies. When a ministry resigns, 
some party leader is selected by the king to form its 
successor. The king otherwise exerts little influence 
upon domestic politics. He never vetoes bills passed 


5°6 The Continental Countries 

by both branches of the legislature, seldom attends 
cabinet meetings, and appoints to office only those 
recommended by his ministers. An Italian monarch 
holds essentially the same ornamental position as a 
British sovereign or a French president. The house 
of Savoy is very popular in Italy, for Victor Emman¬ 
uel II, his son Humbert I, and Victor Emmanuel 
III, the present ruler, have shown themselves truly 
democratic and devoted to the welfare of their 
subjects. 

The party system of Italy resembles that of France. 
Political groups* are numerous, rather loosely organ¬ 
ized, and subject to constant fluctuation. Only three 
groups have well defined programs and constituen¬ 
cies. The Republicans, faithful to the traditions of 
Mazzini and Garibaldi, continue to agitate for a 
republican form of government; they are few in 
number. The Socialists stand for the same things as 
their brethren in other countries. They find recruits 
chiefly among the workingmen of the cities. The 
Catholics, or Clericals, who have only recently been 
allowed by the pope to form a separate political party, 
uphold the influence of the Church in politics; their 
strength is among the peasantry. 

Italian politics has long been complicated by the 
hostility between the government and the papacy. 
Cavour wanted the pope to give up his temporal 
power and retain only a spiritual sway over Catho¬ 
lics throughout the world. The pope did not favor 
this solution of the problem and clung to the States 
of the Church, which after i860 included only Rome 
and its neighborhood. He lost even these possessions 
ten years later, when Italian troops occupied Rome. 
The temporal power of the papacy thus disappeared^ 


Italy, Spain, Portugal and Belgium 507 

after <in existence of more than a thousand 
years. 

The relations of Church and State in Italy were 
henceforth defined by the Law of Papal Guarantees, 
enacted in 1871. It allowed the pope to retain his 
position as an independent sovereign, and as such to 
have his own court and diplomatic representatives, 
without interference from the Italian government. 
The papal territory, however, was limited to the 
Vatican and Lateran palaces in Rome, with their 
extensive gardens. 

The Law of Papal Guarantees has never been 
acknowledged as valid by the popes. Pius IX, who 
occupied the chair of St. Peter in 1871, refused to 
recognize the new Italian kingdom and shut himself 
up in the Vatican. He also issued a decree forbidding 
Italian Catholics to vote or hold office under the 
royal government. His successors, Leo XIII and 
Pius X, continued this prohibition, but it was en¬ 
tirely removed by the late pope, Benedict XV. 
With the entrance into Italian politics of a distinct 
Catholic party, the relations between the government 
and the “prisoner of the Vatican” promise to enter 
upon a new phase. 

Italy’s desire to rank among the great powers led 
her to take part in the scramble for overseas posses¬ 
sions, which has been so marked a feature of Euro¬ 
pean history during the last half century. The 
Italians have established themselves in Eritrea and 
part of Somaliland, on the eastern coast of Africa. 
In 1911 Italy declared war on Turkey and conquered 
Tripolitana and Cyrenaica in northern Africa. The 
two provinces have been organized as a colony under 
the name of Libya. These African territories do 


508 The Continental Countries 


not offer inviting fields for Italian settlement. The 
New World (Argentina, Brazil, and the United 
States) continues to receive most of the peasants and 
workingmen who emigrate from Italy. 

Spain during the nineteenth century had a check¬ 
ered history. Ferdinand VII, the Bourbon king who 
came back after Napoleon’s downfall, ruled so 
wretchedly as to provoke an uprising. This led to 
intervention by the Concert of Europe and his second 
restoration. After his death Spain suffered from 
revolutions and civil wars. Early in the ’seventies 
the Spanish Liberals proclaimed a republic. Two 
insurrections, four coups d’etat, and five presidents 
marked its brief course. The old dynasty of the 
Bourbons recovered the throne in 1875 and still occu¬ 
pies it. The present monarch is Ferdinand’s great- 
grandson, Alfonso XIII. 

The constitution is liberal in character. It pro¬ 
vides for a parliament ( cortes) of two chambers and 
a responsible ministry. Manhood suffrage prevails. 
The king, as in Italy, enjoys little real authority, for 
all his decrees must be countersigned by a minister 
to be valid. Should the royal line become extinct, 
the constitution provides for popular election of a 
monarch. 

The vast colonial empire of Spain was still intact 
a little more than a hundred years ago. The Span¬ 
ish possessions in Mexico, Central America, and 
South America first became separate republics when 
Joseph Bonaparte mounted the throne of Spain in 
1808. They definitely separated from the mother 
country after the restoration of Ferdinand VII. 
Cuba continued to be a badly governed and restless 
dependency until the United States intervened in 


5°9 


Italy, Spain, Portugal and Belgium 

1898. At the Peace of Paris, which concluded the 
opanish-American War, Spain renounced her sov¬ 
ereignty over Cuba and ceded Porto Rico and the 
Philippines to the United States. A year later, she 
S old to Germany her remaining island possessions in 
the Pacific. Her few African possessions, recently 
acquired, are a poor compensation for the loss of 

what was once the greatest colonial empire in the 
world. 

Portuguese history in the nineteenth century to 
some extent duplicates that of Spain. Misgovern- 
ment, insurrections, and armed conflicts between rival 
factions kept the little country in turmoil for many 
years. From about the middle of the century the 
Portuguese had peace, but the failure of kingly rule 
to lessen taxes and introduce reforms resulted in much 
discontent, which found expression in republican 
propaganda. Matters came to a crisis in 1910, when 
a well-planned uprising in Lisbon drove the Portu¬ 
guese ruler into exile. The revolutionists declared 
the dynasty of the Braganzas forever deposed and set 
up a republic. It still endures, in spite of much 
opposition from those who remain attached to the old 
monarchical regime. The republican constitution 
closely follows that of France. 

Though Portugal lost Brazil in the early ’twenties 
of the last century, she still keeps a colonial empire 
surpassed in extent only by the dominions of Great 
Britain and France. It is almost twenty-five times 
the size of the mother country. The most important 
Portuguese possessions are in Africa. The Azores 
and the IVIadeira Islands, which belong to Portugal, 
scarcely rank as colonies, being fully incorporated in 
the government of that country. 


510 The Continental Countries 

The circumstances under which Belgium separated 
from Holland and became independent, with her 
perpetual neutrality guaranteed by the Concert of 
Europe, have been related in an earlier chapter. 
The Belgians, like the Swiss, form a united nation, in 
spite of the linguistic barriers between them. French 
is spoken by the Walloons in the southern provinces, 
and Flemish, a Teutonic tongue, by the Flemings in 
the northern provinces. Both Walloons and Flem¬ 
ings are almost wholly Roman Catholics. The con¬ 
stitution, framed in 1831, set up a limited monarchy 
of the modern type. Belgium has never had any 
trouble with her rulers, because they have steadily 
adhered to that clause of the constitution which 
declares that “all powers emanate from the people.” 

Belgium possesses only one colony, but it is about 
ten times her size. The vast district in Central 
Africa, formerly known as the Congo Free State and 
now as the Belgian Congo, was established in the 
early ’eighties by Leopold II, mainly as a commercial 
undertaking. The king became personal sovereign of 
the state, which proved to be very valuable for its 
rubber, ivory, and other products. In 1908 Leopold 
IT surrendered his Congo properties to Belgium. 

Switzerland, Holland, Denmark, Norway, and 

Sweden 

The Congress of Vienna left Switzerland a confed¬ 
eration of twenty-two semi-independent cantons. The 
only bond between them was a common Diet, whose 
limited power recalls that of the American Congress 
under the Articles of Confederation. A new consti¬ 
tution, adopted in 1848 and subsequently revised, 
established a federal government somewhat resem- 


Switzerland, Holland, and Scandinavia 511 

bling that of the United States. There is a legisla¬ 
ture of two houses, the lower representing the people 
directly, the upper, each canton. The two houses in 
joint session select a committee of seven to act as an 
executive. The president of the confederation is 
merely the chairman of this committee. He serves for 
one year only and has no greater authority than his 
fellow members. In the dovetailing of federal and 
state powers the Swiss constitution follows American 
precedents. The federal government regulates mat¬ 
ters affecting all the people, such as foreign relations, 
tariffs, coinage, the postal service, and the army, but 
the several cantons retain control of local concerns. 

In some parts of Switzerland the inhabitants have 
preserved their ancient, open-air assemblies, where 
all the male citizens appear personally, once a year, 
and by a show of hands elect officials, levy taxes, and 
make the laws. Such direct or pure democracy is 
possible only in the smaller and less thickly popu¬ 
lated cantons. 

The larger cantons possess representative assem¬ 
blies, but over them the people exercise constant con¬ 
trol by means of the referendum and the initiative. In 
some cantons every measure passed by the cantonal 
legislature must be submitted to a popular vote for 
adoption or rejection; in the others submission takes 
place only upon petition of a specified number of 
voters. The complement of such a referendum is the 
initiative, giving a specified number of voters the 
right to propose new laws, which must then be 
referred to a popular vote. The referendum and 
initiative also apply to federal legislation, for both 
ordinary laws and constitutional amendments. 

The Swiss differ markedly among themselves in 


512 


The Continental Countries 


language, religion, and customs. About seventy 
per cent of the inhabitants are German-speaking; the 
remainder speak either French or Italian. All three 
languages are used for the proclamation of laws and 
in legislative debates. Zwinglian and Calvinist Prot¬ 
estants include more than three-fifths of the 
population, but have a majority in only half of the 
cantons. Full religious liberty is guaranteed to all 
citizens. This policy of mutual toleration prevents 
either language or religion from becoming a divisive 
force; it keeps the Swiss a united nation. 

The kingdom of Holland—more accurately, the 
Netherlands—is one of the creations of the Vienna 
Congress. It forms a federal state, consisting (since 
the loss of Belgium) of eleven provinces. These 
retain a large measure of self-government. The house 
of Orange has reigned continuously since 1815, the 
present sovereign being Queen Wilhelmina. The 
constitution of Holland also dates from 1815. Suc¬ 
cessive revisions have made it a fairly liberal docu¬ 
ment. The Crown is still powerful, but the royal 
ministers are responsible to the Estates-General, or 
parliament. The franchise has recently been granted 
to all adult men and women without restriction. 

Holland still keeps various tropical dependencies 
secured in the seventeenth century. They are about 
sixty times as large and six times as populous as the 
mother country. Their coffee, tea, sugar, spices, 
tobacco, and indigo reach Holland in large quantities, 
for distribution throughout Europe. On the whole, 
she administers them very successfully. 

Nature seems to have intended Scandinavia to be 
one country. Only a narrow, shallow sea parts Den¬ 
mark from her northern neighbors, while the well 



Switzerland, Holland, and Scandinavia 513 

settled districts of Norway and Sweden are not sep¬ 
arated by any natural barrier. The Danes, Norwe¬ 
gians, and Swedes have also very much in common. 
They descend from the old Vikings, who became the 
teiror of Europe in the ninth century. Their lan¬ 
guages resemble one another closely, Danish and 
Norwegian in the written form being identical. They 
have all been Lutheran Protestants since the sixteenth 
century. They all live under similar physical con¬ 
ditions and support themselves by agriculture, 
commerce, and the fisheries, rather than by manufac¬ 
turing. Nevertheless, antagonisms due to historical 
causes proved stronger than unity of race, language, 
and culture, with the result that there are three small 
and comparatively weak nations when one large and 
powerful nation might have been consolidated. All 
have a monarchical form of government, with writ¬ 
ten constitutions, bicameral parliaments, responsible 
ministries, and universal suffrage. 

Norway and Sweden were joined after 1815 in a 
personal union under the Swedish king. This 
arrangement continued until 1905. Norway and 
Sweden then separated peacefully, as the result of a 
plebiscite in which the Norwegians, almost to a man, 
voted for complete independence. In order to pre¬ 
vent future conflicts, a “buffer” zone, within which 
no fortress may be erected or troops maintained, has 
been established between the two countries. 

Neither Norway nor Sweden has any colonies. 
Denmark had three, until recently. The most impor¬ 
tant was Iceland, which the adventurous Vikings 
settled more than a thousand years ago. Iceland 
received home rule during the ’seventies, and in 1918, 
in complete agreement with Denmark, became a 


5 H The Continental Countries 

sovereign state under its own flag. The king of Den¬ 
mark remains Iceland’s king, but for purely ornamen¬ 
tal purposes. Denmark has also recently parted with 
her possessions in the West Indies, which she sold to 
the United States in 1917. They have been renamed 
the Virgin Islands. Greenland continues to be Dan¬ 
ish, but enjoys self-government. The Faroe Islands 
are definitely incorporated in the Danish kingdom. 

The German Empire, 1871-1918 

The German Empire, as established in 1871, was 
a federation. It included twenty-six states: four 
kingdoms, six grand duchies, five duchies, seven prin¬ 
cipalities, three free cities, (Hamburg, Bremen, and 
Liibeck), and the imperial territory of Alsace- 
Lorraine. The constitution allowed each state (but 
not Alsace-Lorraine until 1911) to manage its local 
concerns and specified what authority should be exer¬ 
cised by the federal government. The German 
Empire thus represented a compromise between the 
old Germanic Confederation, which formed a union 
of sovereign states, and the thoroughly centralized 
Prussian monarchy. 

The king of Prussia, as cx officio president of the 
federation, received the title of German Emperor. 
He was not called “Emperor of Germany,” for such 
a title would have implied his superiority in rank to 
the other German kings. The kaiser had very great 
powers, particularly in time of war. He commanded 
the army and navy, thus controlling the entire mili¬ 
tary organization of the empire; appointed and 
received ambassadors; and through the imperial 
chancellor, whom he selected, influenced both foreign 
and domestic policies. He might also of his own 


The German Empire 515 

notion declare a defensive war, but the declaration of 
an offensive war required the consent of the Bundes- 
rat. The kaiser was quite irresponsible in his exer¬ 
cise of these powers; he could neither be punished 
nor removed from office for his acts. 

The members of the Federal Council, or Bundes- 
rat, were apportioned among the states roughly 
according to size. Prussia had seventeen; Bavaria, 
the next largest, six; and a great many states, only 
one each. The delegation from each state voted as a 
unit and always in accordance with instructions given 
to them by their respective governments. The con¬ 
sequence was that the Bundesrat formed an aristo¬ 
cratic council of diplomats, representing (except in 
the case of the free cities) the hereditary German 
princes. The Bundesrat, in practice, made all the 
laws. It shaped in secret sessions the bills to be laid 
before the Reichstag for approval, and it had a veto 
of any measure passed by the latter body. 

The members of the Imperial Diet, or Reichstag, 
were elected by manhood suffrage. Though demo¬ 
cratic in composition, the Reichstag exerted little 
influence on legislation. It might introduce bills, but 
few of them were likely to receive the assent of the 
Bundesrat. If, however, the Reichstag refused to 
pass a government measure, the Bundesrat and the 
emperor could dissolve it and order a new election. 
The Reichstag was dissolved four times, and after 
each dissolution the new assembly meekly passed the 
bill which its predecessor had rejected. As com¬ 
pared with the British House of Commons or the 

\ 

French Chamber of Deputies, the Reichstag formed 
little more than a debating society; it discussed, it 
did not govern. 


5 l6 The Continental Countries 

The emperor’s representative in dealing with the 
legislature was the chancellor. This official corres¬ 
ponded only in slight degree to the prime minister 
or premier in other governments. He was responsi¬ 
ble solely to the emperor, who appointed him and 
dismissed him at will. The chancellor presided over 
the Bundesrat, and in the name of the emperor laid 
before the Reichstag all measures which the Bundes¬ 
rat had framed. He also selected the chief federal 
officials and supervised their activity. 

It is clear that, while the German Empire was a 
constitutional state, it was not a democratic state. No 
ministry rose or fell at the will of the Reichstag, and 
the chancellor, the emperor’s agent, held his position 
as long as he retained the emperor’s confidence. 
Unlike Great Britain, France, Italy, Spain, Portu¬ 
gal, Belgium, Holland, and the Scandinavian coun¬ 
tries, Germany did not have a genuine parliamentary 
system. 

Prussia, with approximately two-thirds the area 
and two-thirds the population of Germany, naturally 
held the leading place in the empire. The king of 
Prussia was German emperor; of the five chancellors 
between 1871 and 1914 all but one were Prussians; 
and Prussia kept a majority of representatives in 
the Reichstag. Her seventeen votes in the Bundesrat 
did not assure her a majority there, but she almost 
always obtained the support of enough states to carry 
any legislation desired. On the other hand, if Prus¬ 
sia opposed a bill in the Bundesrat, not less than 
twelve of the largest states had to combine in order 
to secure a majority against her. 

The paramountcy of Prussia makes it highly im¬ 
portant to understand the government of that coun- 




The German Empire 517 

try. The constitution which Frederick William IV 
“granted” in 1850 to his faithful subjects, did not 
seriously limit the royal power. The upper house of 
the Prussian parliament consisted of nobles and 
wealthy Junkers, whom the king appointed for life 
and whose numbers he could enlarge at will. The 
lower and supposedly popular branch of parliament 
was elected according to a system which gave the 
richer classes an overwhelming influence. It might 
happen—it did happen—that the vote of one wealthy 
man had as great weight as the votes of a thousand 
poor workingmen. Even Bismarck, no friend of 
democracy, called the Prussian electoral system the 
worst ever devised. To complete this outline, it 
should be added that the king possessed a veto of all 
legislation passed by parliament; that the ministry 
was responsible to him and not to parliament; and 
that the constitution expressly recognized his divine 
right to rule. “Absolutism under constitutional 
forms” is the description which a great German 
scholar—himself a Prussian—once correctly applied 
to the government of Prussia. 

It is important to note that several non-Germanic 
peoples were incorporated in the German Empire 
against their will. The Poles of West Prussia, East 
Prussia, and Posen, the Danes of Schleswig, and the 
inhabitants of Alsace-Lorraine made up about one- 
twelfth of the total population of Germany. The 
three “submerged nationalities” managed to preserve 
their own languages and culture, in spite of persistent 
efforts on the part of the government to Germanize 
them. 

German history between 1871 and 1914 falls natur¬ 
ally into two periods, the first of which is covered by 





5*8 The Continental Countries 

the reign of William I. The emperor left both 
domestic and foreign affairs almost entirely in the 
strong hands of Bismarck, who served as imperial 
chancellor and president of the Prussian ministry. 
The architect of the empire presided over its desti¬ 
nies for almost twenty years. 

Bismarck still held office when William I passed 
away in 1888, at the age of ninety-one. His successor, 
Frederick III, who had married a daughter of 
Queen Victoria, seems to have been a man of decid¬ 
edly democratic views and an admirer of the Brit¬ 
ish parliamentary system. German Liberals looked 

Hohenzollern Dynasty (1640-1918) 

Frederick William, the Great Elector 
(1640-1688) 

Frederick I 

(1688-1701, elector; 1701-1713, king) 

Frederick William I 
(1713-1740) 


Frederick II, the Great 

1 

August William 

(1740-1786) 

1 

Frederick William II 


(1786-1797) 


Frederick William III 


(1797-1840) 

Frederick William IV 

. .1 

William I 


(1840-1861) (1861-1888, king; 1871-1888, emperor) 

Frederick III 
(1888) 

William II 
(1888-1918) 






The Dual Monarchy 519 

forward with great hope to his reign. But the third 
Frederick mounted the throne only to die within a 
few months. In the light of subsequent events, his 
untimely death was a misfortune for Germany, for 
Europe, and for the world. 

Frederick s son, William II, became king of 
Prussia and German emperor when not quite twenty- 
nine years of age. In this last of the Hohenzollerns 
culminated all their absolutism, their contempt of 
popular government, and their firm belief in the doc¬ 
trine of divine right. “The will of the king is the 
supreme law,” he himself declared. The young 
ruler could not work well with the old chancellor, 
who had so long reigned in all but name. Friction 
between them led to Bismarck’s enforced resignation 
of the chancellorship in 1890. His four successors in 
that office were merely mouthpieces of the emperor; 
after 1890 William II was, in effect, his own 
chancellor. 

The Dual Monarchy, 1867-1918 

The reader will recall how the democratic and 
national movement, which swept over Europe after 
the “February Revolution,” threatened at first to 
break the Hapsburg realm into fragments. But the 
time for its dissolution had not yet come. Austria 
emerged triumphant from the storm of revolution, 
and under the youthful emperor, Francis Joseph I, 
returned to the well-worn path of absolutism and 
reaction. Hungary, especially, felt the full weight 
of Austrian displeasure, as the result of her failure to 
win freedom under Kossuth in 1849. Ever since 
1526, when the Magyars sought the protection of 
Austria against the Ottoman Turks and elected a 


520 The Continental Countries 

Hapsburg king of Hungary, they had continued to 
enjoy some measure of self-government. Their coun¬ 
try was now cut into five districts, ruled by Germans 
from Vienna, and German was made the official lan¬ 
guage everywhere. These measures did not succeed 
in obliterating the sense of nationality among the 
Magyars. After the two disastrous wars of 1859 and 
1866, which expelled the Austrians from Italy and 
Germany, Francis Joseph found himself obliged to 
pursue a more conciliatory policy toward the Mag¬ 
yars and finally gave his consent to the constitution 
known as the Ausgleich (Compromise). 

The Ausgleich created a dual monarchy, some¬ 
thing more than a personal union and yet less than 
a close federation. The dominions of the Haps- 
burgs were split into two self-governing states: (1) 
the Austrian Empire, including Upper Austria, 
Lower Austria, Bohemia, Moravia, Galicia, and 
twelve other provinces; and (2) the kingdom of 
Hungary, including Croatia-Slavonia. Each coun¬ 
try had its own parliament, ministry, courts, officials, 
language, and capital (Vienna and Budapest.) Both 
had one flag, one army and navy, and one sovereign, 
who wore the joint crown of Austrian emperor and 
Hungarian king. There was also a common tariff, a 
common coinage, and a common administration of 
foreign affairs. This political makeshift had to be 
renewed every decade. It managed to survive until 
the revolutionary year of 1918. 

The Ausgleich formed, in effect, a league between 
the Germans and the Magyars, the two strongest 
nationalities of Austria-Hungary. They were not 
only determined to preserve their own language and 
customs, but also to force them on the Slavs, Ruman- 







































































521 


The Dual Monarchy 


ians, and Italians. The result was great and increas¬ 
ing bitterness between the dominant and subject peo¬ 
ples of the Dual Monarchy. 

The relations between Austria and Hungary under 
the Ausgleich were not always amicable. Perhaps 
the strongest tie holding the two countries together 
was a deep-seated loyalty to the venerable Francis 
Joseph. The emperor’s long reign bridged the gap 
between the era of Metternich and the World War, 
between 1848 and 1914* Despite heavy private griefs 
the execution of his brother Maximilian, whom 
Napoleon III had set on the throne of Mexico and 
then deserted * the suicide of his only son ; the murder 
of his wife by an anarchist; and the assassination of 
his nephew and heir—Francis Joseph never forgot 

Hapsburg Dynasty (1745-1918) 


Maria Theresa m. Francis I 


(Austrian ruler, 1740-1780) (Holy Roman Emperor, 1745-1765) 


Joseph II 
(1765-1790) 


Leopold II 
(1790-1792) 


Francis II 

(Holy Roman Emperor, 1792-1806; 
as emperor of Austria, Francis I, 1806-1835) 


Ferdinand I 
(1835-1848) 


Francis Charles 


Francis Joseph I 
(1848-1916) 


Charles Louis 


Francis Ferdinand 


Otto 


Charles I 
(1916-1918) 

















522 The Continental Countries 

the duties of a monarch. He mixed freely among 
the people, received them in public audience, speak¬ 
ing now one, now another, of the many languages of 
his dominions, and worked harder at the business 
of governing than any of his ministers. The 
emperor-king died in harness in 1916. The crowns 
of Austria and Hungary then descended to his grand¬ 
nephew, Charles I, who reigned less than two years. 

The Russian Empire 

The influence of geographical conditions is clearly 
seen in Russian history. European Russia forms an 
immense, unbroken plain, threaded by numerous 
rivers which facilitate movement into every part of 
the country. While the rest of Europe, with its 
mountain ranges and deep inlets of the sea, tended to 
divide into many separate states, Russia just as natur¬ 
ally became a single state. 

The inhabitants of Russia are mainly Eastern 
Slavs, the descendants of Slavic emigrants from the 
Danube and Elbe valleys during the early Middle 
Ages. They separated, centuries ago, into three 
groups. By far the largest group is that of the Great 
Russians, who occupy the interior, the north, and the 
east of Russia. Their historic center is Moscow on 
the Moskva River, the capital of the medieval prin¬ 
cipality of Muscovy. The Little Russians (Ruthe- 
nians, Ukrainians) hold the south and southwest of 
the country. They center about the holy city of Kiev 
on the Dnieper, where in 988 the Scandinavian 
Northmen adopted the Eastern or Greek form of 
Christianity for themselves, and for the Slavs among 
whom they settled. The White Russians, whose 
name is probably derived from their light-colored 


The Russian Empire 


S23 


clothes, dwell to the west, in lands which once be- 
longed to Lithuania. 

The three Russian peoples speak different dialects 
of one Slavic language. The dialectical differences 



are sufficient to prevent a Muscovite from under¬ 
standing a Ukrainian and both from conversing with 
a White Russian. For literary and official purposes, 
the Moscow dialect is everywhere employed. The 
alphabet in use comes from the Greek, enriched with 
special signs for Slavic letters. 

The three Russian peoples also unite in a common 











































524 The Continental Countries 

allegiance to the Orthodox Church. This was an 
offshoot of the medieval Greek Church, from which 
most of its doctrines and ritual have been derived. 
Until the Russian Revolution of 1917, the tsar 
remained the head of the church, as far as to make 
and annul all appointments to ecclesiastical office. 
Russia, it may be noted, contains numberless dissent¬ 
ing sects, which formerly encountered persecution by 
the government for their unorthodox beliefs and 
practices. 

The seaward expansion of Russia in Europe grad¬ 
ually enrolled many non-Russians among the tsar’s 
subjects. They were found principally along the 
frontier. Peter the Great annexed several Baltic 
provinces containing Esthonians, Letts, and Ger¬ 
mans. Catherine II absorbed the greater part of 
Poland, and by her conquest of the Crimea and the 
northern coast of the Black Sea added to the empire 
millions of Mohammedan Tatars. Early in the nine¬ 
teenth century Alexander I took Finland from Swe¬ 
den (1809) > wrested Bessarabia from Turkey (1812), 
secured a further slice of Poland (1815), and began 
the conquest of Caucasia. The Caucasian territory 
with its mixed population (Georgians, Circassians, 
Armenians, etc.) was not finally incorporated in the 
empire until after the middle of the century. Russia 
then reached her territorial limits in Europe. The 
break-up of the country since the World War has 
enabled most of these frontier peoples to establish 
independent states. 

The hodge-podge of territories and Babel of peo¬ 
ples composing the Russian Empire in the nineteenth 
century was ruled by an autocratic tsar. His decrees 
weie binding on all his subjects. Russian laws called 


The Russian Empire 525 

him an “independent and absolute sovereign” and 
declared that God “orders men to submit to his supe¬ 
rior authority, not only from fear of punishment, but 
as a religious duty.” Many educated Russians, who 
perhaps were not greatly impressed by this appeal to 
divine right, nevertheless considered autocratic gov¬ 
ernment a practical necessity for Russia. The enor¬ 
mous size and varied population of the country, the 
dense ignorance of most of its inhabitants, and the 
absence of a prosperous, progressive middle class, 

Romanov Dynasty (1762-1917) 

Catherine II (1762-1796) 

Paul I (1796-1801) 

I 

Alexander I 
(1801-1825) 


which could take part in political life, seemed to 
indicate that the triumph of democracy would be 
long postponed in the tsar’s domains. The chief 
interest of Russian history during the last century 
lies, therefore, in the development of liberalism, 
which gradually undermined the whole fabric of 
autocracy, and in the revolutionary year of 1917 
brought it crashing to the ground. 

Alexander I, grandson of Catherine II, began as a 
monarch of enlightened views. Under the influence 


Nicholas I 
(1825-1855) 

Alexander II 
(1855-1881) 


Alexander III 
(1881-1894) 

Nicholas II 

(1894-1917) 



5 2 6 The Continental Countries 

of his Swiss tutor, he imbibed many democratic ideas 
of the revolutionary period in Europe, and he aspired 
to put them into practice. His ardor for reform grew 
cold, however, after he came under the influence of 
that foe of liberalism, Prince Metternich. The tsar 
not only signed the Protocol of Troppau but also 
cooperated with his brother monarchs in putting 
down the first liberal uprisings in Italy and Spain. 
The last years of his life found him equally reaction¬ 
ary at home. 

Nicholas I, unlike his brother, never felt any senti¬ 
mental sympathy with liberalism. To prevent liberal 
ideas from spreading among his subjects, the tsar 
relied on a strict censorship of the press, passport 
regulations which made it difficult for any one to 
enter Russia or to leave it, an army of spies, and the 
secret police known as the Third Section. The chief 
of the Third Section had unlimited power to arrest, 
imprison, or deport a political suspect, without war¬ 
rant and without trial. During the thirty years’ reign 
of Nicholas I, liberals by tens of thousands lan¬ 
guished in jail or trod the path of exile to Siberia. 
Nicholas was no less autocratic in his foreign policy. 
W e have alieady learned how ruthlessly he put down 
the Polish insurrection and how he aided Francis 
Joseph I to destroy the Hungarian Republic. Once 
only did the tsar espouse a revolutionary cause. In 
182S lie sided with the Greeks, who had risen against 
the Turks, but even then his purpose was not so much 
to free Greece as to exalt Russia. Nicholas after¬ 
ward waged the Crimean War, a venture which 
brought him into conflict with Great Britain, France, 
and Sardinia as the allies of Turkey. He died before 
the war ended. 


The Russian Empire 527 

Alexander II started out as a benevolent despot. 
The earlier part of his reign was marked by notable 
reforms, especially those which freed the serfs and 
created elective provincial assemblies for local gov¬ 
ernment. But the tsar was not a liberal at heart, and 
his counselors were men trained in the school of 
Nicholas I. They convinced him, as Metternich had 
convinced the first Alexander, that liberalism was a 
Western novelty, quite unsuited to holy Russia, and 
bound to be followed by revolution and the overthrow 
of autocracy. After a Polish insurrection in the early 
’sixties, which thoroughly frightened the tsar, re¬ 
action had full swing in Russia. 

The intense disappointment of the educated classes 
at Alexander’s relapse into the traditional ways of 
Russian monarchs gave rise to nihilism. It began as 
an academic doctrine. Radical thinkers, building 
where the French philosophers of the eighteenth cen¬ 
tury had left off, set up reason and science as the 
twin guides of life. Russia, they urged, must make 
a clean sweep of autocracy, of the Orthodox Church, 
and of every other institution that had come down 
from an unreasoning, unscientific past. Only when 
the ground had been thus cleared, would it be possible 
to reconstruct a new and better society. The nihilists 
before long began to seek converts among the masses. 
Under the guise of doctors, school teachers, factory 
hands, and common laborers, they preached the gos¬ 
pel of political, social, and economic freedom to arti¬ 
sans in the towns and peasants in the country. The 
government soon got wind of the revolutionary move¬ 
ment and imprisoned or exiled those who took part 
in it. The nihilist propaganda of words now passed 
into a propaganda of deeds. Since the government 


528 


The Continental Countries 


ruled by terror, it was henceforth to be fought with 
terror. A secret committee at St. Petersburg con¬ 
demned to death a number of prominent officials, 
spies, and members of the hated Third Section, and 
in some cases succeeded in assassinating them. Alex¬ 
ander II himself was murdered in 1881. 

The reign of Alexander III is chiefly significant for 
the systematic efforts made by the government to com¬ 
pel all the non-Russians in the empire to use the Rus¬ 
sian language, accept Russian customs, and worship 
according to the rites of the Orthodox Church. This 
policy led to severe treatment of the Finns, Estho- 
nians, Letts, Lithuanians, Poles, Germans, and Jews. 
The persecution of the Jews was followed by their 
emigration in great numbers to the United States. 

The accession of Nicholas II brought no change 
in the political situation. The young man was amiable 
and well-meaning, but as much an autocrat by nature 
as any of his predecessors. The reactionaries sur¬ 
rounding him now redoubled their efforts to keep 
Russia “frozen.” Teachers, students, journalists, 
professional men, in fact, every one who dared think 
aloud suffered under the iron regime. No person 
was secure against arbitrary arrest, imprisonment, 
exile, or execution. Meanwhile, the opposition to 
autocracy developed rapidly in Russia, not only 
among the working people and peasants, but also 
among the middle classes and enlightened members 
of the nobility. All the liberal and discontented 
elements combined to demand for Russia the free 
institutions which were now no longer novelties in 
western Europe. Revolutionary disorders at length 
compelled the tsar to issue decrees in 1905-1906, 
granting franchise rights and providing for a repre- 


529 


Ottoman Empire and the Balkan States 

sentative assembly (Duma). The Duma met four 
times and accomplished some useful legislation. It 
did not succeed, however, in winning liberty for the 
people. When the World War broke out, the corrupt 
and inefficient autocracy seemed to be as firmly seated 
as ever in Russia. 

The Ottoman Empire and the Balkan States 

In its general contour the Balkan Peninsula resem¬ 
bles an inverted triangle, the apex of which ends in 
the Morea (anciently the Peloponnesus). Exami¬ 
nation of a physical map shows that the surface is 
almost entirely mountainous, the only extensive plains 
being those formed by the valleys of the Danube and 
the Maritza, and the basin of Thessaly. The line of 
the Balkans clearly separates the upper from the 
lower portion of the peninsula, but so many routes 
cross them that they have always formed simply an 
obstacle, never a barrier, to invading peoples from 
the north. Owing to the distribution of the moun¬ 
tain ranges, the principal rivers empty into the Black 
Sea and the Aegean, rather than into the Adriatic. 
The best harbors and most numerous islands are also 
located on the eastern side of the peninsula. The 
Balkans, in fact, form a part of the Near East, and 
their history during modern times is indissolubly 
linked with the Eastern Question. 

No other part of Europe of equal extent contains 
so many different peoples as the Balkan Peninsula. 
The original inhabitants are represented to-day by 
the Albanians. The Greeks rank as the next old¬ 
est inhabitants of the peninsula, though the origi¬ 
nal purity of their blood has been adulterated by 
intermixture with Albanians and Slavs. Toward 


530 


The Continental Countries 


the end of the sixth century A. D v the South Slavs 
(Jugoslavs) began to leave their homes among 
the Carpathians and to occupy the region south 
of the Danube. The Bulgarians, a people of 
remotely Asiatic origin and akin to the Magyars 
and Turks, first appeared in the seventh century. 
They adopted the speech, religion, and culture of the 
South Slavs. The Rumanians claim descent from 
the Roman colonists of Dacia north of the Danube; 
they seem to be, however, chiefly the descendants of 
Slavic immigrants. The Turks descend from the 
Ottoman invaders of the fourteenth and fifteenth cen¬ 
turies and from later immigrants. Intermarriage 
with their Christian captives and converts from 
Christianity to Islam has made the Turks substan¬ 
tially European in physique. The Turkish popula¬ 
tion is nowhere found in compact masses except in 
northeastern Bulgaria and in the vicinity of Adria- 
nople and Constantinople. 

The empire of the Ottoman Turks formed a typical 
Oriental despotism. The sultan was not only lord of 
the Turkish realm in both Asia and Europe, but also 
the caliph, or spiritual head, of all Islam. He lived 
shut up in his seraglio at Constantinople and de¬ 
pended upon his vizier (prime minister) and divan 
(council of ministers) to execute his will. Each 
province had a pasha (governor) nominally subject 
to the sultan, but more often than not practically 
independent of him. The professional soldiers known 
as Janizaries, who at first had been exclusively 
recruited from Christian children, comprised the 
standing army. 

Only those who accepted Islam were citizens of the 
Ottoman Empire. The T urks tolerated the presence 



I 










































































Ottoman Empire and the Balkan States 531 

of Christians, but deprived them of all political 
rights. Unbelievers could not hold any civil office or 
serve in the army. They also had to pay heavy taxes 
not imposed upon Moslems. Some Christians 
accepted the faith of their conquerors, in order to 
secure the privileges of citizenship. Even including 
these converts, the Turks in southeastern Europe 
remained a small minority of the population. Im¬ 
passable barriers, raised by differences of race, lan¬ 
guage, religion, and customs, separated them from 
their subjects. 

The Ottoman Empire in the eighteenth century 
showed plain signs of the blight which inevitably 
descends upon states built up by the sword and main¬ 
tained only by the sword. Few. of its despotic 
sovereigns possessed real ability, and the control of 
affairs passed more and more into the hands of self- 
seeking ministers and favorites. The Janizaries, a 
turbulent body, often used their power to set up and 
depose sultans at will. The weakness of the central 
administration was reflected in the provinces, where 
the pashas acquired substantial independence and in 
many instances made their power hereditary. 
Turkey’s internal decadence offered a promising 
opportunity for its partition among European 
powers. 

Ever since the fateful year, 1683, the Turks had 
lost ground in Europe. Austria soon recovered Hun¬ 
gary, Transylvania, and much of Croatia and Sla¬ 
vonia. Russia under Catherine II seized the Crimea, 
with the adjoining territory, and under Alexander I 
took Bessarabia. The settlement of 1815 made the 
Ionian Islands a British protectorate. Then, as the 
nineteenth century progressed, the Christian peoples 


532 


The Continental Countries 


of the Balkans, stirred by the same enthusiasm for 
nationality which had moved Italians, Germans, Bel¬ 
gians, Poles, and Bohemians, threw off the Ottoman 
yoke and declared for freedom. The dismemberment 
of Turkey began. 

The warlike inhabitants of Montenegro never fully 
accepted Ottoman sovereignty. A corner of the 
“Black Mountain 7 ’ country held out for four hundred 
years against the Turks. The independence of Monte¬ 
negro as a principality was finally recognized by the 
sultan in 1799. In 1910 it became a kingdom. 

The Serbians have a memorable history. In the 
fourteenth century one of their rulers, Stephen 
Dushan, built up an empire which covered nearly 
the entire Balkan Peninsula. It was Dushan’s 
ambition to unite Serbians, Greeks, and Bulgarians, 
and by their union to prevent the Ottoman power 
from taking root in southeastern Europe. His empire 
collapsed as a result of the battle of Kossovo (1389), 
and for the next four hundred years Serbia lay under 
the heel of the Turk. All this time its people never 
forgot their glorious past. The exploits of Dushan 
and other national heroes were handed down by min¬ 
strels, who kept alive the memory of the days when 
Serbia held first place in the Balkans. After two 
revolts early in the nineteenth century the country 
received self-government as a principality. It became 
a kingdom in 1882. 

The Greeks had not been a free people since their 
conquest by the Romans in the second century B. C. 
Byzantines, crusading Franks, and Venetians occu¬ 
pied Greece during medieval times. By the middle 
of the fifteenth century the entire country came under 
the Turks, whose dominion endured until the nine- 


533 


Ottoman Empire and the Balkan States 

teenth century had run one-quarter of its course. The 
French Revolution awakened the longing of the 
Greeks for independence, and in 1821 they raised the 
standard of revolt. Volunteers from every European 
country, as well as a few Americans, came to help 
them. The powers at first stood coldly by, for Met- 
ternich, the presiding genius of the Concert of 
Europe, considered the Greeks simply rebels against 
legitimate Ottoman authority. As the struggle 
proceeded and the Greeks seemed likely to be over¬ 
whelmed, public opinion in Great Britain and France 
increasingly favored intervention, and the accession 
of Nicholas I brought to the throne a tsar ready to 
follow the traditional Russian policy toward the 
Turks. The three powers finally took decisive action. 
An allied fleet destroyed the Turkish navy at Nava- 
rino, a French army drove the Turks out of the 
Morea, and the Russians, crossing the Balkans, 
moved upon Constantinople. The sultan had to yield, 
and in 1829 signed a treaty which granted complete 
independence to central and southern Greece. 

The kingdom of Greece, as originally established, 
comprised only a small part of ancient Hellas. More 
than half of the Greek people remained under Turk¬ 
ish rule, distributed in Thessaly, Epirus, Macedonia, 
Thrace, the Ionian Islands, the islands of the Aegean, 
Crete, Cyprus, and the western coast of Asia Minor 
(the classic Ionia). A Pan-Hellenic movement soon 
began to recover as much as possible of these regions 
from the Turks. Great Britain fostered it by ceding 
the Ionian Islands, and also by inducing the sultan 
to relinquish Thessaly. The Balkan Wars of 1912- 
I 9 I 3 > which will be described presently, gave Greece 
southern Epirus, a valuable part of Macedonia, 


534 The Continental Countries 

Crete, and many smaller islands. When the World 
War broke out and Turkey sided with the Central 
Powers, it was the hope of the Greek premier, Veni- 
zelos, that Greece might now completely realize her 
Pan-Hellenic ambitions by entering the struggle on 
the side of the Allies. 

Twenty-five years after the winning of Greek free¬ 
dom, Nicholas I, who often spoke of the sultan as the 
u sick man” of Europe and of his approaching funeral, 
reopened the Eastern Question by invading Turkey. 
The result was the Crimean War. The Turks did 
not fight alone. Great Britain supported them 
because of the fear that the downfall of the Ottoman 
Empire would be followed by Russian occupation of 
Constantinople and Russian control of the eastern 
Mediterranean, thus menacing British communica¬ 
tions with India. France joined Great Britain, prin¬ 
cipally because the adventurous Napoleon III, who 
had recently become emperor, wished to pay off the 
grudges against Russia which Napoleon I had accu¬ 
mulated. Count Cavour and Victor Emmanuel II 
added the Sardinian kingdom to the alliance, in order 
to further their plans for the unification of Italy. 
The Russians fought alone, for both Austria and 
Prussia preserved neutrality. The war was mainly 
confined to the Crimea, where the allies sought to 
capture Sevastopol, Russia’s naval base on the Black 
Sea. After its fall Russia withdrew from the unequal 
contest. 

The peace treaty gave a new lease of life to the 
Ottoman Empire. The powers guaranteed the integ¬ 
rity of the sultan’s possessions, only exacting from him 
promises of fieedom of worship and better govern¬ 
ment for his Christian subjects. The promises were 


Ottoman Empire and the Balkan States 


535 


never kept; and the lot of Christians in Turkey 
became harder than ever. In their desire to keep 
Russia out of Constantinople, Great Britain and 
Franee thus abandoned the tradition, which had come 
down from the crusades, that the Turks were a bar¬ 
barous people and the enemies of civilization. 
Turkey was to be treated henceforth as no longer 
outside the pale, but as a respectable member of the 
European family of nations. 

The dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire 
recommenced soon after the Treaty of Paris. Tur¬ 
key’s principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia had 
been semi-independent under a Russian protectorate 
since 1829. They command the lower Danube, and 
their acquisition would have enabled Russia to con¬ 
trol the navigation of the most important river of 
Europe. Consequently, the diplomats at Paris con¬ 
verted Moldavia and Wallachia into self-governing 
states, with Turkey as their nominal overlord. The 
Rumanians, who inhabit both principalities, desired, 
however, to form a united nation. The powers and 
the sultan gave a grudging consent, and the new state 
of Rumania came into existence. 

Russia’s desire to rescue the Christians of the 
Balkans from oppression and, incidentally, to take 
Constantinople, brought about another war between 
the two countries. Sufficient justification for it 
existed in the cruelty with which Turkish soldiers 
had suppressed an insurrection of the Bulgarians. 
This time western Europe remained neutral and 
watched the duel between Slav and Turk. Russian 
armies promptly crossed the Danube, only to be held 
up for months before the fortress of Plevna in Bul¬ 
garia. The Turks fought well, and their defense of 


536 The Continental Countries 

Plevna is celebrated in military annals. Its fall 
allowed the tsar’s troops to advance within sight of 
the Golden Horn. Here they paused, for both Great 
Britain and Austria-Hungary threatened hostilities, 
in case Russia occupied Constantinople. 

Russia and Turkey now made peace. By the Treaty 
of San Stefano the sultan agreed to the creation of 
a new state, Greater Bulgaria, stretching from the 
Danube to the ALgean and including nearly all Mace¬ 
donia. Both Greece and Serbia protested vigorously 
against this arrangement, which upset their own plans 
for expansion in the Balkans. Far more serious was 
the opposition of the Western powers. Austria did 
not relish the idea of a strong Balkan state lying 
across her path to the Mediterranean, while Great 
Britain feared that Greater Bulgaria would be merely 
the willing tool of Russia. A general European con¬ 
flict threatened, until the tsar agreed to submit the 
treaty to revision by an international congress to be 
held at Berlin, under Bismarck’s presidency. 

The assembled diplomats attempted still another 
solution of the Eastern Question. The Treaty of 
Berlin recognized Montenegro, Serbia, and Rumania 
as sovereign states, wholly independent of Turkey. 
That part of Bulgaria between the Danube and the 
Balkans became a self-governing principality under 
Turkish sovereignty. Bulgaria south of the Balkans 
—Eastern Rumelia—went back to the sultan, together 
with Macedonia. Austria-Hungary was allowed to 
occupy and administer the Turkish provinces of 
Bosnia and Herzegovina. Great Britain was given 
the right to hold the island of Cyprus. These arrange¬ 
ments having been made, the powers again solemnly 
guaianteed the integrity” of the sultan’s remaining 




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CONSTANTINOPLE AND THE BOSPORUS 





537 


Ottoman Empire and the Balkan States 

possessions in Europe. The Ottoman Empire thus 
remained in Europe, a decadent empire propped up 
by Christian arms. • 

Diplomacy did not bring peace to the Balkans. 
The inhabitants of Eastern Rumelia before long 
revolted against the Turks and united with Bulgaria. 
The European powers protested against this infrac¬ 
tion of the Berlin treaty, but took no measures to pre¬ 
vent the union of the two Bulgarian territories. 
Bulgaria remained tributary to the sultan until 1908. 
By that time she had grown strong enough to repudi¬ 
ate another clause of the Berlin treaty and to set up 
as an independent kingdom. Her ruler, Ferdinand 
of Saxe-Coburg, then exchanged his princely dignity 
for the more pretentious title of tsar of the Bulgarians. 

The year 1908 saw also a revolution in the sultan’s 
dominions. This was the work of the Young Turks, 
a group of patriotic reformers who aimed to revive 
and modernize the Ottoman Empire. They won over 
the army and carried through a sudden, almost blood¬ 
less, coup d'etat. The terrified sultan (Abdul Hamid 
II) had to issue a decree restoring the constitution 
granted by him at his accession, but abrogated soon 
afterward. His despotism vanished, and the Otto¬ 
man Empire, with an elective parliament, a responsi¬ 
ble ministry, and a free press took a place among 
democratic states. 

It soon became evident, however, that the Young 
Turks were nationalists as well as democrats. They 
intended to weld together all the peoples of the Otto¬ 
man Empire into a single nation, with Turkish as the 
favored language and Islam the only privileged faith. 
Just as the Russian policy was one of Russification, 
so that of the Young Turks was one of Ottoman- 


538 


The Continental Countries 


ization. Cruel oppression and massacres of Chris¬ 
tians in various parts of the empire followed, particu¬ 
larly in Macedonia. Phis Turkish province was 
peopled by Greeks, Serbians, and Bulgarians. Large 
numbers of them fled to their respective countries, 
carrying their grievances with them, and agitated for 
war against Turkey. 

The war soon came. Greece, Montenegro, Serbia, 
and Bulgaria, forgetting for the moment the jeal¬ 
ousies which divided them, came together in a Balkan 
alliance, issued to the sultan an ultimatum demand¬ 
ing self-government for Macedonia, and when this 
was refused, promptly began hostilities. They were 
everywhere successful, and Turkey was compelled to 
give up all her European dominions west of a line 
drawn from Enos on the Aegean Sea to Midia on the 
Black Sea. She likewise ceded Crete to Greece. The 
allies then proceeded to quarrel over the disposition 
of Macedonia. A second Balkan War resulted, with 
Greece, Serbia, Montenegro, Rumania, and Turkey 
ranged against Bulgaria. Tsar Ferdinand could not 
cope with so many foes and sued for peace. 

The treaty signed at Bukharest completely altered 
the aspect of the Balkans. Bulgaria surrendered to 
Rumania districts south of the Danube, and allowed 
Greece, Montenegro, and Serbia to annex most of 
Macedonia. These three states were now nearly 
doubled in size. The Turkish province of Albania 
became an independent principality. Turkey, though 
ignored at the Peace Conference, escaped dismember¬ 
ment and even secured an accession of territory. The 
Treat} of Bukharest thus left the Turk in Europe, 
and by sowing seeds of enmity between Bulgaria and 
her sister states helped further to postpone a satis¬ 
factory solution of the Eastern Question. 















































































































































E l ROPEAX G0VERNMENTS 


Country 


Capital 


Ruler 


Albania . . 

. Durazzo 


Austria . . 

. Vienna 

President M. 

Belgium 


Hainisch 

. Brussels 

Albert I (1909—) 

Bulgaria 

Sofia 

Boris III (1918—) 
President T. G 

Czecho- 

Prague 

Slovakia . 
Denmark . 

Copenhagen 

Masaryk 
Christian X 
(1912—) 

Esthonia . 

Reval 

Finland . . . 

Helsingfors 

President Iv. J. 

France . . . 


Stahlberg 

Paris 

President A. 

Germany . . 


Millerand 

Berlin 

President F. 

Ebert 

George V 

Great Britain 

London 

Greece . . . 


(1910—) 

Athens 

George II 



(1922—) 

Holland . . 

Hungary . . 

The Hague 

Wilhelmina 

(1890—) 

Budapest 

Iceland . . . 

Reykjavik 

Christian X 

Italy . . . 


(1912—) 

Rome 

Victor Emanuel 

Jugoslavia . . 

Latvia . . . 

Belgrade 

Riga 

III (1900—) 

Alexander I I 

(1919—) 

Lithuania . . 

Vilna 


Norway . . . 

Christiania 

Haakon VII S 



(1905—) 

Poland . . . 

Warsaw 

President J. I 

Portugal . . 


Pilsudski 

Lisbon 

President A. h 



Almeida 

Rumania . . 

Bukharest 

Ferdinand I S 



(1914—) 

Russia . . . 

VIoscow 


Spain . . . 

Madrid 

Adfonso XIII C 



(1886—) 

Sweden . . . 

Stockholm ( 

lustav V D 



(1907—) 

Switzerland . ] 

Berne 

s 

Turkey . . . ( 

Constantinople 3 

/Tohammed VI S< 



(1918—) 

Ukrania . . I 

Ciev 



Parliament 


Senate and Chamber of Repre¬ 
sentatives 

National Assembly or Sobranje 
Senate and Chamber of Deputies 

Rigsdad (Landsthing and Folke- 
thing) 

House of Representatives 

Senate and Chamber of Deputies 

Bundesrat and Reichstag 

House of Lords and House of 
Commons 

Buie (Council of State and 
Chamber of Deputies) 

!states-General (First Chamber 
and Second Chamber) 

ltliing (Upper House and 
Lower House) 


Skupshtina 


thing). 


Chamber 


Cortes (Senate and Congress) 

'et (First Chamber and Secor 
Chamber) 


539 














































CHAPTER XVI 


COLONIAL EXPANSION AND WORLD POLITICS 

Greater Europe 

Colonial expansion, begun by Spaniards and 
Portuguese in the sixteenth century and continued in 
the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries by Russians, 
Dutch, French, and English, culminated during the 
past hundred-odd years. It is principally this move¬ 
ment which gives such significance to European his¬ 
tory. The civilization of Europe, as affected by the 
Renaissance, the Reformation, and the Revolution, 
has been spread throughout the world. The lan¬ 
guages, literatures, religions, laws, and customs of 
Europe have been extended to almost all mankind. 

Great Britain in 1815 was the leading world power. 
France had been well-nigh eliminated as a colonial 
rival by the Seven Years’ War, and Holland had lost 
valuable possessions overseas in the revolutionary and 
Napoleonic wars. The spectacle of the British 
Empire, so populous, so rich in natural resources, so 
far-flung, stirred the imagination and aroused the 
envy of the witnessing nations. They, also, became 
eager for possessions in savage or half-civilized lands. 
France, from the time of Louis Philippe, began to 
conquer northwestern Africa and Madagascar and to 
acquire territories in southeastern Asia. Italy and 
Germany, having attained nationhood, entered into 
the race for overseas dominions. Portugal and Spain 
annexed new colonies. Diminutive Belgium built up 
a colonial empire in Africa. Mighty Russia spread 

540 












































































































































i 






54i 


Greater Europe 

out eastward over the whole of Siberia and, having 
reached the Pacific, moved southward toward the 
warmer waters of the Indian Ocean. Meanwhile, 
the United States expanded across the American 
continent, acquired the Philippines and other depen¬ 
dencies, and stood forth at length as an imperial 
power. Few and unimportant were those regions of 
the world which remained unappropriated at the 
opening of the twentieth century. 

The word “imperialism” conveniently describes all 
this activity of the different nations in reaching out 
for colonial dependencies. Imperialism, of course, 
is not a new phenomenon; empire building began 
almost at the dawn of history. We are concerned 
here only with its most recent aspects. Sometimes it 
leads to the declaration of a protectorate over a 
region, or, perhaps, to the marking off a sphere of 
influence where other powers agree not to interfere. 
Sometimes it goes no further than the securing of 
concessions in undeveloped countries such as Mex¬ 
ico, Brazil, or China. Most commonly, however, 
imperialism results in the complete annexation of a 
distant territory, with or without the consent of the 
inhabitants. 

The imperialistic ambitions of the great powers 
more than once led them to disregard the rights of 
weaker nations in Africa, Asia, and other parts of the 
world. Thus, Great Britain subdued the two Boer 
republics in South Africa, Italy attempted to conquer 
the independent nation of Abyssinia, and Great 
Britain, France, Germany, and Russia at one time 
threatened the integrity of China. It should be said, 
however, that in most cases colonial dependencies 
have been secured only at the expense of savage or 


542 Colonial Expansion and World Politics 


semi-civilized peoples. Though there are many 
things to condemn in the conduct of the European 
powers toward their subjects, much improvement is 
to be observed within recent years. Great Britain, 
France, and other colonial states expend large sums 
annually in their dominions for roads, railways, 
schools, medical service, and humanitarian work of 
various sorts. 

It has been manifestly impossible for even the most 
democratic of modern nations to grant self-govern¬ 
ment to their rude and backward subjects. Where the 
level of civilization is higher, as in Egypt and India, 
the prevailing illiteracy of the inhabitants forms a 
great obstacle in the way of democracy. We have 
already noted, however, that Great Britain during 
the last century raised round herself a circle of self- 
governing daughters in Canada, Australia, and South 
Africa, and that France permits some of her colonies 
to send representatives to the French legislature. 
Other instances of the bestowal of free institutions 
upon native peoples will be referred to as we proceed 
with the story of European expansion in Africa and 
Asia. 


The Opening-up of Africa 

Speaking broadly, Africa consists of an elevated 
plateau with a fringe of unindented coastal plain. 
Penetration of the interior was long delayed by 
mountain ranges which approach close to the sea, by 
rapids and falls which hinder river navigation, by 
the barrier of dense forests and extensive deserts, and 
by the unhealthfulness of the climate in many regions. 
Though lying almost in sight of Europe, Africa 
remained until our own time the “Dark Continent.” 


543 


The Opening-up of Africa 


Many different peoples have found a home in 
Africa. All the northern part of the continent is 
occupied by the White Race, divided into three great 



groups of Semites (Arabs), Eastern Hamites, and 
Western Hamites, or Libyans. The Black Race since 
prehistoric times has held the rest of the continent. 
The true negroes are confined to the Sudan and adja¬ 
cent parts. Some negroes in the course of time 










































































































544 Colonial Expansion and World Politics 


blended more or less with Hamites, giving rise to the 
Bantu-speaking peoples, who dwell chiefly south of 
the equator. To these elements of the native popula¬ 
tion must be added the curious Pygmies of the equa¬ 
torial districts, together with the Hottentots and 
Bushmen in the extreme south. 

Little more than the Mediterranean shore of 
Africa was known in antiquity. Here were Egypt, 
the first home of civilization, and Carthage, Rome’s 
most formidable rival for supremacy. During the 
earlier Middle Ages all North Africa fell under 
Arab domination. Arab missionaries, warriors, and 
slave-hunters also spread along the eastern coast and 
established trading posts as far south as the mouth 
of the Zambesi River. The vast extent of the con¬ 
tinent was first revealed to Europeans by the Portu¬ 
guese discoveries in the second half of the fifteenth 
century. Except for the Dutch colony at the Cape 
of Good Hope, Europeans, however, did not try to 
settle in Africa. Nothing tempted them to do so. 
The shores of the continent were plague-ridden, and 
its interior was supposed to consist of barren deserts 
or of impenetrable forests. Maps of Africa a hun¬ 
dred years ago show the interior decorated with pic¬ 
tures of the hippopotamus, the elephant, and the 
negro, to conceal the ignorance of geographers. 

The penetration of Africa has been mainly accom¬ 
plished by following the course of its four great 
rivers. In the last decade of the eighteenth century 
the British African Association, then recently 
founded, sent Mungo Park to the Niger. He and 
his immediate successors explored the basin of that 
river and revealed the existence of the mysterious 
city of Timbuktu, an Arab capital never previously 


5+5 


The Opening-up of Africa 

visited by Europeans. The determination of the 
sources of the Nile—a problem which had interested 
the ancients—met with success shortly after the mid- 



die of the nineteenth century. Captain Speke first 
saw the waters of the lake which he named Victoria 
Nyanza, in honor of England’s queen, and Sir Sam- 





































































































54^ Colonial Expansion and World Politics 

uel Baker found the smaller lake called by him 
Albert Nyanza, in honor of the Prince Consort. The 
discovery of snow-clad mountains in this part of 
Africa confirmed what Greek geographers had 
taught regarding the “Mountains of the Moon.” 

Meanwhile, an intrepid Scotch missionary and 
explorer, David Livingstone, had traced the course of 
the Zambesi. Starting from the Cape, he worked his 
way northward, found the wonderful Victoria Falls, 
and crossed the continent from sea to sea. Living¬ 
stone’s work was carried further by Henry M. Stan¬ 
ley, a newspaper correspondent who became one of 
the eminent explorers of modern times. He discov¬ 
ered Lake Albert Edward Nyanza, showed that Lake 
Tanganyika drained into the Congo, and followed 
that mighty stream all the way to its mouth. Stan¬ 
ley’s fascinating narratives of his travels did much to 
arouse European interest in Africa. 

Mission work in Africa went hand in hand with 
geographical discovery. Not a great deal has been 
accomplished in North Africa, where Islam is 
supreme from Morocco to Egypt and from the Medi¬ 
terranean to io° north of the equator. Abyssinia, 
the negro republic of Liberia, and South Africa, as 
far as it is white, are entirely Christian. The accom¬ 
panying map shows how mission stations, both 
Roman C atholic and Protestant, have been planted 
throughout the broad belt of heathenism in Central 
Africa. 

The Partition of Africa 

1 he division of Africa among European powers 
followed promptly upon its exploration. Spain, 
Portugal, Belgium, Germany, Italy, France, and 


547 


The Partition of Africa 

Great Britain all profited by the scramble for Afri¬ 
can territory, particularly during the ’eighties and 
the nineties of the last century. The Spanish pos¬ 
sessions are small, compared with those of the other 
powers, and, except for the northern coast of Mor¬ 
occo, not of great importance. Portugal, however, 
controls the two valuable regions of Angola and 
Mozambique. 

The Congo basin, in the heart of the Dark Conti¬ 
nent, is controlled by Belgium. The area of the Bel¬ 
gian Congo has now been considerably increased by 
the acquisition of former German territories. 

Soon after Germany attained national unity, she 
made her appearance among colonial powers. 
Treaties with the native chiefs and arbitrary annex¬ 
ations resulted in the acquisition of extensive regions 
in Southwest Africa, East Africa, the Cameroons, 
and Togo. They were all conquered by the Allies 
during the World War. 

Italy was another late-comer on the African scene. 
She secured Eritrea on the Red Sea and Italian Som¬ 
aliland. An Italian attempt to annex Abyssinia 
ended disastrously, and the ancient Abyssinian 
“empire” still remains independent. Italy’s most 
important African colony is Libya, conquered from 
Turkey in 1911-1912. It says much for the liberal 
principles underlying Italian colonial policy that a 
constitution has recently been granted to the Libyans. 

The beginnings of French dominion in Africa 
reach back to the seventeenth century, when Louis 
XIV began to acquire trading posts along the west¬ 
ern coast and in Madagascar. It was not until the 
nineteenth century, however, that the French entered 
seriously upon the work of colonization. France 


548 Colonial Expansion and World Politics 

now holds Algeria, the conquest of which began in 
i 83°; Tunis, taken from Turkey in 1881; most of 
Morocco, a protectorate since 1912; the valleys of 
the Senegal and Upper Niger; part of the Guinea 
coast; French Somaliland; and the island of Mada¬ 
gascar. A glance at the map shows that the African 
possessions of France exceed in area those of any 
other power, but they include the Sahara Desert. 

Great Britain has secured, if not the lion’s share, 
at any rate the most valuable share of Africa. Besides 
extensive possessions on the Guinea coast, she holds 
a solid block of territory all the way from the Cape 
of Good Hope to Egypt. Cape Colony was cap¬ 
tured from the Dutch during the Napoleonic wars. 
The Dutch farmers, or Boers, did not take kindly to 
British rule. Many of them, with their families and 
flocks, moved from Cape Colony into the unknown 
country beyond. This wholesale emigration resulted 
in the formation of the Boer republics of Natal, 
Orange Free State, and the Transvaal. Natal was 
soon annexed by Great Britain, but the other two 
republics remained independent. The discovery of 
the world’s richest gold mines in the Transvaal led 
to a large influx of Englishmen, who, since they paid 
taxes, demanded a share in the government. The 
champion of British interests was Cecil Rhodes, an 
Oxford student who found riches in the Rimberley 
diamond fields and rose to be prime minister of Cape 
Colony. The Dutch settlers, under the lead of Pres¬ 
ident Kruger of the Transvaal, were just as deter¬ 
mined to keep the government in their own hands. 
Disputes between the two peoples culminated in the 
South African War (1899-1902), in which the Boers 
were overcome by sheer weight of numbers. 


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Exploration and Partition of 

AFRICA 


(British 


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Italian 


Spanish 

Portuguese 

Belgian 


^-ongitude West 20° from Greenwich lo 


Livingstone, 1849-73...... .„ 

Stanley,1871,1874-77. 

Speke and Grant, 1860-63._ 

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Scale of Miles 

THE MATTHSWS-N 9 RTHRUP WORKS. BUFFA1 O. N>Y . 
60° 


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The Partition of Africa 


549 


The war had a happy outcome. Great Britain 
showed a wise liberality toward her former foes and 
granted them self-government. Cape Colony, Natal, 
Orange Free State, and the Transvaal soon came 
together in the Union of South Africa. The Union 
has a governor-general appointed by the British 
Crown, a common parliament, and a responsible min¬ 
istry. Cape Town and Pretoria are the. two capitals, 
and both English and Dutch are official languages. 

The Union may ultimately include other British 
possessions in Africa. Great Britain asserts a pro¬ 
tectorate over Bechuanaland, which is still very 
sparsely settled by Europeans. She also controls the 
imperial domain acquired by Cecil Rhodes and 
called after him Rhodesia. During the World War 
loyal Boers conquered German Southwest Africa and 
cooperated with the British in the conquest of Ger¬ 
man East Africa. Great Britain has still other 
territories in this part of the Dark Continent. The 
Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, comprising the region of the 
Upper Nile, was secured in the last decade of the 
nineteenth century, as the result of General Kitch¬ 
ener’s victorious campaigns. 

The Egyptians have been subject to foreigners for 
over twenty-four hundred years. The Persians came 
to Egypt in the sixth century, B. C. ; then the Mace¬ 
donians under Alexander the Great; then the 
Romans under Julius Caesar; and subsequently the 
Arabs and the Ottoman Turks. Turkish sultans con¬ 
trolled the country until the early part of the nine¬ 
teenth century, when an able pasha made himself 
almost an independent sovereign. After 1882 Egypt 
was ruled by Great Britain. Once established in 
Egypt, the British began to make it over. They 


55 ° Colonial Expansion and World Politics 

restored order, purified the courts, levied taxes 
fairly, reorganized the finances, paid the public debt, 
abolished forced labor, and took measures to improve 
sanitary conditions. British engineers built a railroad 
along the Nile, together with the famous Assua.n 
Dam and other irrigation works which reclaimed 
millions of acres from the desert. For the first time 
in centuries, the peasants were assured of peace, jus¬ 
tice, and an opportunity to make a decent living. 
Nevertheless, economic prosperity did not reconcile 
the people to foreign rule. In 1922, after much agi¬ 
tation and revolutionary outbreaks, Great Britain 
finally conceded the independence of Egypt. The 
British, however, retain control of the foreign rela¬ 
tions of that country. 

The strategic importance of Egypt as the doorway 
to Africa will be much increased by the completion 
of the Cape-to-Cairo Railway. This transcontinental 
line starts from Cape Town, crosses Bechuanaland 
and Rhodesia, and will ultimately link up with the 
railway already in operation between Khartum, 
Cairo, and Alexandria on the Mediterranean. The 
unfinished part is mainly in the Congo region. The 
Cape-to-Cairo Railway owes its inspiration to Cecil 
Rhodes, who dreamed of an “all-red” route across 
Africa, and then with characteristic pluck and energy 
set out to make his dream come true. 

The completion of the Suez Canal has likewise 
put Egypt on the main oceanic highway to the Far 
East. The canal is a monument to the great French 
engineer, Ferdinand de Lesseps. It was opened to 
traffic in 1869. The money for the undertaking came 
chiefly from European investors. Great Britain pos¬ 
sesses a controlling interest in the enterprise. The 


Opening-up and Partition of Asia 551 

canal, however, may be freely used by the ships of all 
nations. More than half of the voyages from Europe 
to the Far East are now made through the canal 
rather than round the Cape of Good Hope. 

The Opening-up and Partition of Asia 

The Europeanization of Asia was not far advanced 
at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Europe 
knew only Siberia, which Russia had appropriated, 
and those parts of India which had been annexed by 
Great Britain. All western Asia belonged to the 
Ottoman Empire and remained unaffected by Euro¬ 
pean influence. On the eastern side of the continent 
lay China and Japan, old and civilized but stagnant 
countries, whose backs were turned upon the rest of 
the world. Within the past hundred years, however, 
European traders, missionaries, and soldiers have 
broken through the barriers raised by Oriental peo¬ 
ples, and now almost the whole of Asia is either 
politically or economically dependent upon Europe. 

The Russians were established throughout Siberia 
before the close of the seventeenth century. Their 
advance over this enormous but thinly peopled 
region was facilitated by its magnificent rivers, which 
furnished highways for explorers and fur traders. 
Northern Siberia is a waste of swamp and tundra, 
where the terrible climate blocks the mouths of the 
streams with ice and even in summer keeps the 
ground frozen beneath the surface. Farther south 
comes a great belt of forest, the finest timbered area 
still intact on the face of the earth, and still farther 
south extend treeless steppes adapted in part to agri¬ 
culture and in part to herding. The country also 
contains much mineral wealth. In order to secure an 


55 2 Colonial Expansion and World Politics 

outlet for Siberian products, Russia compelled China 
to cede the lower Amur Valley with the adjoining 
seacoast. The Russians in their newly acquired ter¬ 
ritory founded Vladivostok as a naval base. 

Vladivostok is also the eastern terminus of the 
Trans-Siberian Railway. The western terminus is 
Petrograd, three thousand miles distant. The rail¬ 
way was completed in 1900 by the imperial govern¬ 
ment, partly to facilitate the movement of troops and 
military supplies in Siberia and partly to develop 
that region as a home for Russian emigrants and a 
market for Russian manufactures. A branch line 
extends to Port Arthur, which, unlike Vladivostok, 
is an ice-free harbor on the Pacific. 

Russia also widened her boundaries in central Asia 
by absorbing Turkestan east of the Caspian and south 
of Lake Balkash and the Aral Sea. Alarmed by the 
steady progress southward of the Russian colossus, 
Great Britain began to extend the northern and 
northwestern fiontiers of India, in order to secure a 
mountain barrier for her Indian possessions. Half 
a century of feverish fears and restless advances on 
both sides was ended by the Anglo-Russian Conven¬ 
tion of 1907. It dealt with Persia, Afghanistan, and 
Tibet. 

The Persian kingdom became a buffer state 
between Russia and Great Britain. The northern 
part of Persia was recognized as a Russian sphere of 
influence, the southern part as a British sphere, and 
the central part as a neutral zone where the two pow¬ 
ers pledged themselves not to interfere except by 
mutual consent. The unsettled conditions arising out 
of the World War enabled Persia to rid herself of 
Russian control. With Great Britain she concluded 



,091 





































































































Opening-up and Partition of Asia 553 

a new agreement by which the former power guar¬ 
anteed the security of the Persian frontiers and prom¬ 
ised economic assistance. But this agreement has 
not been ratified. 

The kingdom of Afghanistan also became a buffer 
state. Great Britain engaged not to annex any of its 
territory, while Russia on her side, agreed to regard 
it as within the British sphere of influence and under 
British protection. Though a very mountainous 
region, Afghanistan contains numerous passes, over 
which in historic times conquering peoples have 
repeatedly descended into India. 

The Chinese dependency of Tibet was little known 
until a few years ago, when a British military expedi¬ 
tion penetrated to the sacred city of Lhasa and 
obtained concessions for trade within the country. 
Russia also professed to be interested in Tibet. By 
the Anglo-Russian Convention both nations promised 
to respect its territorial integrity and to recognize 
Chinese suzerainty over the country. 

Indo-China, except for the nominally independent 
state of Siam, is now under British and French con¬ 
trol. Great Britain holds Burma and the Straits Set¬ 
tlements. The Federated Malay States are under 
British protection. France holds Tonkin, Anam, 
Laos, Cambodia, and Cochin-China. These posses¬ 
sions were acquired at the expense of China, which 
formerly exercised a vague sovereignty over south¬ 
eastern Asia. 

Siam occupies a position comparable to that of 
Persia. By an agreement between Great Britain and 
France in 1896, the country was divided into three 
zones: the eastern to be the French sphere of influ¬ 
ence; the western to be the British sphere of influ- 


554 Colonial Expansion and World Politics 

ence; and the central to be neutral. It will be thus 
seen that a belt of protected or neutral states— 
Afghanistan, Persia, Tibet, and Siam—separates the 
possessions of Russia and France in Asia from 
those of Great Britain and forms the real frontier of 
India. 

India 

British expansion in India, begun by Clive during 
the Seven ^ ears’ War, has proceeded scarcely without 
interruption to the present day. The conquest of 
India was almost inevitable. Sometimes the Indian 
princes attacked the British settlements and had to 
be overcome; sometimes the lawless condition of 
their dominions led to intervention ; sometimes, again, 
the need of finding defensible frontiers resulted in 
annexations. The entire peninsula, covering an area 

half as large as the United States, is now under the 
Union Jack. 

The East India Company continued to govern 
India until after the middle of the nineteenth cen¬ 
tury. In 1857 came the Sepoy Mutiny, a sudden 
uprising of the native soldiers in the northern part 
of the country. The mutiny disclosed the weakness 
of company rule and at once led to the transfer of all 
governmental functions to the Crown. Queen Vic¬ 
toria subsequently assumed the title, Empress of 
India. A viceroy, whose seat is the old Mogul capi¬ 
tal Delhi, and the officials of the Indian Civil Ser¬ 
vice administer the affairs of about two-thirds of the 

country. The remainder is ruled by native princes 
under British control. 

The fact that a handful of foreigners has been 
able to subdue and keep in subjection more than 
three hundred million Indian peoples is sufficiently 





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India 


555 


explained by their disunion. There are many racial 
types, and one hundred and fifty distinct languages. 
The Aryan Hindus dwell in the river valleys of the 
Indus and the Ganges. Southern India belongs 
chiefly to the dark-skinned Dravidians, who speak 
non-Aryan tongues and probably represent the abo¬ 
riginal inhabitants of the peninsula. The slopes of the 
Himalayas are occupied by the descendants of Turk¬ 
ish (Mogul) and other invaders. On the northeast, 
reaching down into Burma, are Mongolian peoples 
allied to the Chinese. All these elements, however, 
have become inextricably mingled, and their repre¬ 
sentatives are found in every province and native 
state. 

Religion likewise acts as a divisive force. The 
Hindus accept Brahmanism, a name derived from 
Brahma, the Supreme Being or First Cause. In its 
original form, three thousand years ago, Brahmanism 
appears to have been an elevated faith, but it has now 
so far declined that its adherents generally worship 
a multitude of gods, venerate idols, revere the cow 
as a sacred animal, and indulge in many debasing 
rites. The Dravidians are only nominal Brahman- 
ists; their real worship is that of countless village 
deities. Islam prevails especially in the northern 
fringe of provinces, but Moslem missionaries have 
penetrated almost every part of the country. Budd¬ 
hism, which arose out of the teaching of the great 
religious reformer, Gautama Buddha, (about 560- 
480 B. C.), is now practically extinct in the land of 
its birth, though Ceylon and Burma are strongholds 
of this ancient faith. 

Nor are the Hindus themselves united. The all- 
pervading caste system splits them up into several 




556 Colonial Expansion and World Politics 

thousand distinct groups, headed by the Brahmans 
or priests. Members of a given caste may not marry 
outside it; may not eat with any one who does not 
belong to it; and may not do work of any sort unrec¬ 
ognized by it. Caste, in fact, regulates a man’s 
actions from the cradle to the grave. It has lasted 
in India for ages. 

The spread of European civilization in India 
promises to remove, or at least to lower, the barriers 
of race, religion, and caste. Great Britain enforces 
peace throughout the peninsula, builds railways and 
canals linking every part of it together, stamps out 
the famines and plagues which used to decimate the 
inhabitants, and has begun their education in schools 
of many grades. All this tends to foster a sense of 
nationality, something hitherto lacking in India. 
Educated Hindus, familiar with the national and 
democratic movements in Europe, now demand self- 
government for their own country. This may come 
in time, but a united Indian nation must necessarily 
be of slow development. 

China 

Between Russian Asia and British and French 
Asia lies China, with a larger area than Europe and 
probably quite as populous. China proper consists 
of eighteen provinces in the fertile valleys of the 
A angtze and the Hoangho, or Yellow River. The 
great length of the country accounts for the variety 
of its productions, which range from hardy grains in 
the north to camphor and mulberry trees, tea, and 
cotton in the south. The mineral wealth includes 
deposits of copper, tin, lead, and iron, much oil, and 
coal fields said to be the most extensive in the world. 


China 


557 


The traditions of the Chinese throw no light on 
their origin. They probably developed out of the 
Mongolian stock inhabiting China proper. In the 
course of centuries they pushed into Manchuria, 
Mongolia, Chinese Turkestan (Sinkiang), Tibet, 



Indo-China, and Korea, until the greater part of 
eastern Asia came under Chinese influence. 

The Chinese boast a civilization already old when 
Rome was young. They are famous for artistic work 
in wood and metal, the manufacture of silk, and the 
production of porcelain or chinaware. Rudimentary 
forms of such inventions as the compass, gunpowder, 
paper, and movable type were early known to them. 



























55 $ Colonial Expansion and World Politics 

Their cumbrous, nonalphabetic writing, used for 
thousands of years, is now to be superseded by a pho¬ 
netic script of thirty-nine characters. 

The government of China, until recently, had 
always been a monarchy. The emperor, in theory 
absolute, was really under the thumb of the office¬ 
holding or mandarin class, which took the place of a 
hereditary nobility. Any one, high or low, could 
enter its ranks by passing a rigid examination in the 
sacred books. These were in part collected and ed¬ 
ited by Confucius (551-479 B. C.), the reformer who 
did so much to make reverence for ancestors and 
imitation of their ways the Chinaman’s cardinal vir¬ 
tues. Confucianism is a code of morals rather than 
a religion. It has not supplanted among uneducated 
people a lively belief in many spirits, good and bad. 
Buddhism has spread so widely over China and the 
adjoining countries that to-day it forms the creed of 
more than a fourth of mankind. Christianity and 
Islam are also making some headway in China. 

The rugged mountains and trackless deserts which 
bound three sides of China long shut it off from much 
intercourse with the western world. The proud dis¬ 
position of its people, to whom foreigners were only 
barbarians (“foreign devils”), likewise tended to 
keep them isolated. Before the nineteenth century 
the only Europeans who gained entrance into the 
Celestial Empire” were a few missionaries and 
traders. The merchants of Portugal established 
themselves at Macao, and those of Holland and 
Gieat Britain at Canton. There was some traffic 
overland between Russia and China. Foreign trade 
however, h«d no attraction for the Chinese, who dis¬ 
couraged it as far as possible. 


China 


559 


The difficulties experienced by merchants in China 
led at length to hostilities between that country and 
Great Britain. The British, with their modern fleet 
and army, had an easy victory and in 1842 compelled 
the Chinese government to open additional ports and 
cede the island of Hongkong. Other nations now 
hastened to secure commercial concessions in China. 
Many more ports were opened to foreign merchants, 
Europeans were granted the right to travel in China, 
and Christian missionaries were to be protected in 
their work among the inhabitants. But all this made 
little impression upon perhaps the most conservative 
people in the world. The Chinese remained abso¬ 
lutely hostile to the western civilization so rudely 
thrust upon them. 

Foreign aggression soon took the form of annexa¬ 
tions in outlying portions of Chinese territory. We 
have seen how Great Britain appropriated Burma; 
France, Indo-China; and Russia, the Amur district. 
Meanwhile, Japan, just beginning her national 
expansion, looked enviously across the sea to Korea, 
a tributary kingdom of China. The Chino-Japanese 
War (1894-1895) followed. Completely defeated, 
the Chinese had not only to renounce all claim to 
Korea, but also to surrender to Japan the island of 
Formosa and the extreme southern part of Manchu¬ 
ria, including the coveted Port Arthur. At this 
juncture of affairs Russia, Germany, and France 
intervened and induced the Japanese to accept a 
money indemnity in lieu of territorial acquisitions on 
the mainland. The coalition then seized several 
Chinese harbors and divided much of the country 
into spheres of influence. The partition of China 
seemed at hand. 


560 Colonial Expansion and World Politics 

But Europe was not to have its own way in China. 
A secret society called the “Boxers,” whose members 
claimed to be invulnerable, spread rapidly through 
the provinces and urged war to the death against the 
“foreign devils.” Encouraged by the empress- 
dowager, Tze-hsi, who was regent of China for 
nearly forty years, the “Boxers” murdered many 
traders and missionaries. The foreigners in Peking 
took refuge within the legations, where after a des¬ 
perate defense they were finally relieved by an inter¬ 
national army composed of European, Japanese, and 
American troops. The allies then made peace with 
China and promised henceforth to respect her terri¬ 
tory. They insisted, however, on the payment of a 
large indemnity for the outrages committed during 
the anti-foreign outbreak. 

Events now moved rapidly. Educated Chinese, 
many of whom had studied abroad, saw clearly that 
their country must adopt western ideas and methods, 
if it was to remain a great power. The demand for 
thorough reforms in the government soon became a 
revolutionary propaganda, directed against the 
unprogressive Manchu (or Manchurian) dynasty, 
which had ruled China for nearly three hundred 
years. The youthful emperor finally abdicated, and 
the oldest empire in the world became a republic. 

This sudden awakening of China from her sleep 
of centuries is a prodigious event in world history. 
Already China possesses many thousands of miles of 
railroads and telegraph lines, besides numerous fac¬ 
tories, mills, and mines equipped with machinery. 
She has begun the creation of a modern army. She 
has abolished long-established customs, such as the 
torture of criminals and the foot-binding of women. 


THE WOBld POWERS 



British 

Italian 


French 

Danish 


Dutch 

Japanese 


[ Belgian 
Chinese 


Portuguese 


United 

States 


Spanish 

Russian 


A 









































































Japan 


561 

She has prohibited the consumption of opium, a vice 
which sapped the vitality of her people. Her tem¬ 
ples have been turned into schools teaching the sci¬ 
ences and foreign languages, and her students have 
been sent in large numbers to foreign universities. 
Such reforms promise to bring China into the fellow¬ 
ship of Occidental nations. 

Japan 

Japan proper consists of four large islands and 
between three and about four thousand smaller ones 
stretching crescent-like off the coast of eastern Asia. 
Because of its generally mountainous character, lit¬ 
tle more than one-eighth of the archipelago can be 
cultivated. Rice and tea form the principal crops, 
but fruit trees of every kind known to temperate 
climes flourish, and flowers bloom luxuriantly. The 
deep inlets of the coast provide convenient harbors, 
and the numerous rivers, though neither large nor 
long, supply an abundance of water. Below the sur¬ 
face lie considerable deposits of coal and metals. 

The Japanese are descended mainly from Koreans 
and Chinese, who displaced the original inhabitants 
of the archipelago. The immigrants appear to have 
reached Japan in the early centuries of the Christian 
era. Except for their shorter stature, the Japanese 
closely resemble the Chinese in physique and per¬ 
sonal appearance. They are, however, more quick¬ 
witted and receptive to new ideas than their neigh¬ 
bors on the mainland. Other qualities possessed by 
the Japanese in a marked degree include obedience, 
a martial spirit, and an intense patriotism. “Thou 
shalt honor the gods and love thy country” is the 
first commandment of the national faith. 


5 62 Colonial Expansion and World Politics 

The Japanese naturally patterned their civilization 
upon that of China. They adopted a simplified form 
of Chinese writing and took over the literature, 
learning, and art of the “Celestial Empire.” The 
moral system of Confucius found ready acceptance 
in Japan, where is strengthened the reverence for par¬ 
ents and the worship of ancestors. Buddhism, intro¬ 
duced from China by way of Korea, brought new 
ideas of the nature of the soul, of heaven and hell, 
and of salvation by prayer. It is still the prevailing 
religion in Japan. Like the Chinese, also, the Jap¬ 
anese had an emperor (the mikado). He became in 
time only a puppet emperor, and another official (the 
shogun) usurped the chief function of government. 
Neither ruler exerted much authority over the nobles 
(daimios), who oppressed their serfs and waged pri¬ 
vate warfare against one another very much as did 
their contemporaries, the feudal lords of medieval 
Europe. 

The fiist European visitors to Japan were Portu¬ 
guese merchants and Jesuit missionaries, who came in 
the sixteenth century. The Japanese government 
welcomed them at first, but the growing unpopularity 
of the foreigners before long resulted in their expul¬ 
sion from the country. Japan continued to lead a 
hermit life until the middle of the nineteenth century. 
Foreign intercourse began in 1853-1854, with the 
arrival of an American fleet under Commodore M. 
C. Perry. He induced the shogun to sign a treaty 
which opened two Japanese ports to American ships. 
The diplomatic ice being thus broken, various Euro¬ 
pean nations soon negotiated commercial treaties 
with Japan. 

Thoughtful Japanese, however great their dislike 
















Japan 563 

/ 

of foreigners, could not fail to recognize the superi¬ 
ority of the western nations in the arts of war and 
peace. A group of reformers, including many prom¬ 
inent daimios, now carried through an almost 
bloodless revolution. As the first step, they com¬ 
pelled the shogun to resign his office, thus making 
the mikado the actual as well as titular sovereign 
(1867). Most of the daimios then voluntarily sur¬ 
rendered their feudal privileges (1871). This 
patriotic act made possible the abolition of serfdom 
and the formation of a national army on the basis 
of compulsory military service. Japan subsequently 
secured a written constitution, with a parliament of 
two houses and a cabinet responsible to the mikado. 
He is guided in all important matters by a group of 
influential nobles, called the “Elder Statesmen,” who 
form the real power behind the throne. 

The revolutionary movement affected almost every 
aspect of Japanese society. Codes of civil, commer¬ 
cial, and criminal law were drawn up to accord with 
those of western Europe. Universities and public 
schools were established upon Occidental models. 
Railroads and steamship lines were multiplied. The 
abundant water power, good harbors, and cheap 
labor of Japan facilitated the introduction of Euro¬ 
pean methods of manufacturing; factories sprang up 
on every side; and machine-made goods began to dis¬ 
place the artistic productions of handworkers. Japan 
became a modern industrial nation and a competitor 
of Europe for Asiatic trade. 

Once in possession of European arts, sciences, and 
industries, Japan entered upon a career of territorial 
expansion in eastern Asia. Her merchants and cap¬ 
italists wanted opportunties for money-making 


564 Colonial Expansion and World Politics 

abroad; above all, her rapidly increasing population 
required new regions suitable for colonization beyond 
the narrow limits of the archipelago. As we have 
learned, the Chino-Japanese War (1894-1895) 
brought Korea (Chosen) under Japanese influence 
and added Formosa to the empire. Just ten years 
later Japan and Russia clashed over the disposition 
of Manchuria. The Russo-Japanese War (1904- 
1905) seemed a conflict between a giant and a pygmy, 
but the inequality of the Japanese in numbers and 
resources was more than made up by their prepared¬ 
ness for the conflict, by their irresistible bravery, and 
by the strategic genius which their generals dis¬ 
played. After much bloody fighting by land and 
sea, both sides accepted the suggestion of President 
Roosevelt to arrange terms of peace. The treaty, as 
signed at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, recognized 
the claims of Japan in Korea, gave to Japan a lease 
of Port Arthur, and provided for the evacuation of 
Manchuria by both contestants. Russia also ceded to 
Japan the southern half of the island of Sakhalin. 
No indemnity was paid by either country. 

Even before the Russo-Japanese War Great Bri¬ 
tain had recognized the new importance of Japan by 
concluding an offensive and defensive alliance with 
the Island Empire.” Each contracting party 
pledged itself to come to the other’s assistance in case 
the possessions of either in eastern Asia and India 
were attacked by another state. The alliance was re¬ 
newed in 1911, for ten years. After the Russo- 
Japanese War both France and Russia, which had 
formed with Great Britain the so-called Triple En¬ 
tente, also entered into a friendly understanding with 
Japan for the preservation of peace in the Far East. 


The Opening-up of Oceania 565 
The Opening-up and Partition of Oceania 

The term Oceania, or Oceanica, in its widest sense 
applies to all the Pacific Islands. The continental 
group includes, in addition to the Japanese Archi¬ 
pelago and Formosa, the Philippines, the Malay 
Archipelago, Australia, and Tasmania. Many of 
these islands appear to have been connected at a 
remote period, and still more remotely to have been 
joined to the Asiatic mainland. The oceanic group 
includes, besides New Zealand, a vast number of 
islands and islets either volcanic or coralline in for¬ 
mation. They fall into the three divisions named 

Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia. 

■ * 

The natives of Oceania exhibit a wide variety of 
culture, ranging from the savage aborigines of Aus¬ 
tralia to the semi-civilized Filipinos, Malays, and 
Polynesians. The first emigrants to the continental 
islands doubtless came from Asia and walked dry- 
shod from one archipelago to another. On the other 
hand, the oceanic islands could only have been 
reached by water. Their inhabitants, at the time of 
European discovery, were remarkable navigators, 
who sailed up and down the Pacific and even ven¬ 
tured into the icy Antarctic. No evidence exists, 
however, that they even once sighted the coast of 
America. 

Magellan discovered the Philippines on his voy¬ 
age of circumnavigation in 1521, and for more than 
three hundred and fifty years they belonged to Spain. 
The conquest of the islands was essentially a peaceful 
missionary enterprise. Spanish friars accomplished 
a remarkable work in carrying Christianity to the 
natives. These converted Filipinos are the only large 



566 Colonial Expansion and World Politics 

mass of Asiatics who have adopted the Christian 
religion in modern times. 

The United States, which took over the Philip¬ 
pines from Spain in 1898, adopted a liberal and 
enlightened policy toward the inhabitants. A con¬ 
stabulary or police force, made up of native soldiers 
and officered by white men, was organized to main¬ 
tain order. The agricultural lands belonging to the 
friars were purchased for the benefit of the people. 
Hundreds of American school teachers were intro¬ 
duced to train Filipino teachers in English and mod¬ 
em methods of instruction. Large appropriations 
weie made for roads, harbors, and other improve¬ 
ments. True to democratic traditions, the United 
States also set up a Filipino legislature, which at the 
present time is entirely elected by the natives. But 
home rule does not satisfy them; they want complete 
independence. The separation movement has gained 
ground rapidly since the World War, which stirred 
the nationalist longings of the Filipinos as of the 
Koreans, Hindus, and Egyptians. American public 
opinon seems to favor withdrawal from the islands, 
as soon as the inhabitants have clearly shown them¬ 
selves capable of maintaining a stable government. 

The possessions which Portugal acquired in the 
Malay Archipelago were seized by Holland in the 
seventeenth century. All the islands, except British 
Borneo, the Portuguese part of Timor, and the east¬ 
ern half of New Guinea, belong to the Dutch They 
were transferred at the end of the eighteenth century 
rom the Dutch East India Company to the royal 
government. The Dutch have met the usual difficul¬ 
ties of Europeans ruling subject peoples, but their 
authority seems to be now thoroughly established 



THE PACIFIC OCEAN 

BRITISH 


FRENCH 

DUTCH 


PORTUGUESE 

JAPANESE 

AMERICAN 



















































Australia and New Zealand 567 

throughout the archipelago. The government is 
fairly enlightened, and considerable progress has 
been made in educating the natives and in raising 
their economic condition. Although Holland freely 
opens her possessions to traders of other nations, 
Dutch merchants continue to control the lucrative 
commerce of the islands. 

Geographical knowledge of the Pacific islands 
dates from Captain Cook’s discoveries in the eight¬ 
eenth century, but their partition among European 
powers has been completed only in the twentieth 
century. Most of them have been annexed by Great 
Britain and France. The United States controls 
Guam, part of Samoa, and the Hawaiian Islands. 
The German possessions in the Pacific were surren¬ 
dered to the Allies shortly after the opening of the 
World War. 

Australia and New Zealand 

Australia deserves its rank as a separate continent. 
In area it equals three-fourths of Europe and one- 
third of North America. The characteristic features 
of Australian geography are the slightly indented 
coast, the lack of navigable rivers communicating 
with the interior, the central desert, the absence of 
active volcanoes or snow-capped mountains, the gen¬ 
erally level surface, and the low altitude. Australia 
is the most isolated of all inhabited continents, while 
the two large islands of New Zealand, twelve hun¬ 
dred miles to the southeast, are still more remote 
from the center of the world’s activities. 

Much of Australia lies in the temperate zone and 
therefore offers a favorable field for white settlement. 
Captain Cook, on the first of his celebrated voyages, 


568 Colonial Expansion and World Politics 


raised the British flag over the island continent. 
Colonization began with the founding of Sydney on 
the coast of New South Wales. For many years 
Australia served as a penal station, to which the 
British transported the convicts who had been previ¬ 
ously sent to America. More substantial colonists 
followed, especially after the introduction of sheep¬ 
farming and the discovery of gold in the nineteenth 
century. They settled chiefly on the eastern and 
southern coasts, where the climate is cool and there 
is plenty of water and rich pasture land. 

New South Wales, the original colony, had two 
daughter colonies, Victoria and Queensland. Two 
other colonies South Australia and Western Aus¬ 
tralia were founded directly by emigrants from 
Great Britain. All these states, together with Tas¬ 
mania, have now united into the Australian Com¬ 
monwealth. This federation follows American 
models in its written constitution, its senate and house 
of representatives, and its high (or supreme) court. 
A governor-general, sent from England, represents 
the British Crown. The commonwealth, however, 
is entirely self-governing, except in foreign affairs. 

Great Britain annexed New Zealand in 1840. Its 
temperate climate, abundant rainfall, and luxuriant 
vegetation soon attracted settlers, who now number 
more than a million. It cannot fail to become a rich 
and prosperous country, as the Pacific Ocean is grad¬ 
ually opened up to the civilizing influences which 
have previously centered in the Mediterranean and 
the Atlantic. In 1907 New Zealand was raised from 
the rank of a colony to that of a dominion, thus tak¬ 
ing a place beside South Africa, Australia and Can¬ 
ada among self-governing divisions of the British 
Empire. 


Canada 


569 


Canada 


The population of Canada in 1763 was almost 
entirely French. After the American Revolution 
Canada received a large influx of “Tories” from the 
Thirteen Colonies, together with numerous emigrants 
from Great Britain. The new settlers had so many 
quarrels with the French Canadians that Parliament 
passed an act dividing the country into Upper Canada 
for the British and Lower Canada for the French. 
Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Newfoundland 
remained separate provinces. 

When Great Britain, in retaliation for Napoleon’s 
Continental System, issued the Orders in Council, the 
United States, as the chief neutral, was also the chief 
sufferer. The injury to American trade, coupled with 
the quarrel over the impressment of seamen, provoked 
the second war with Great Britain. It seemed to 
furnish a good opportunity for the conquest of Can¬ 
ada, but British and French Canadians united in 
defense of their country and drove out the American 
armies. The treaty of peace left matters as they were 
before the war. A few years later the United States 
and Great Britain agreed to dismantle forts and re¬ 
duce naval armaments on the waterways dividing 
American from Canadian territory. This agreement 
has been loyally observed on both sides for more than 
a century. The unfortified boundary from the 
Atlantic to the Pacific is an eloquent testimony to the 
good relations between Canada and the United States. 

Canada had done her duty to the British Empire 
during the War of 1812-1814, but she waited more 
than thirty years for her reward in the shape of self- 
government. Great Britain, after losing the Thirteen 


57 ° Colonial Expansion and World Politics 

Colonies, did not favor any measures which might 
result in Canadian independence as well. Finally, 
Parliament sent over a wise statesman, Lord Durham, 
to investigate the political discontent in Canada. 
Lord Durham in his Report urged that the only 
method of keeping distant colonies is to allow them 
to rule themselves. If the Canadians received free¬ 
dom to manage their domestic affairs they would be 
moie, and not less, loyal, for they would have fewer 
causes of complaint against the mother country. The 
Durham Report produced a lasting effect on British 
colonial policy. Not only did Great Britain grant 
parliamentaiy institutions and self-government to the 
Canadian provinces, but, as we have seen, she also 
bestowed the same privileges upon her Australasian 
and South African dominions. 

Another of Lord Durham’s recommendations led 
to the union of Upper Canada (Ontario) and Lower 
Canada (Quebec). In 1867 Ontario and Quebec 
formed with Nova Scotia and New Brunswick the 
confederation known as the Dominion of Canada. 
It has a governor-general, representing the British 
sovereign, a senate whose members hold office for 
life, and an elective house of commons, to which the 
cabinet of ministers is responsible. Each Canadian 
province also maintains a parliament for local legis¬ 
lation. The distinguishing feature of the Canadian 
constitution is that all powers not definitely assigned 
by it to the provinces belong to the Dominion. Con¬ 
sequently, the question of “states’ rights” can never be 
raised in Canada. 

The Dominion expanded rapidly. It purchased 
from the Hudson Bay Company the extensive terri¬ 
tories out of which the provinces of Manitoba, 


Latin America 


57 i 

Saskatchewan, and Alberta have been created. Brit¬ 
ish Columbia and Prince Edward Island soon came 
into the confederation. All the remainder of British 
North America, except Newfoundland, which still 
holds aloof, was annexed in 1878 to the Dominion of 
Canada. One government now holds sway over the 
whole region from the Great Lakes to the Arctic 
Circle. 

Equally rapid has been the development of the 
Dominion in wealth and population. The western 
provinces, formerly left to roving Indian tribes and 
a few white traders, are attracting numerous foreign 
immigrants. Two transcontinental railroads—the 
Canadian Pacific, completed in 1886, and the more 
recent Canadian Northern—make accessible the 
agricultural resources of the Dominion, its forests, 
and its deposits of coal and minerals. Canada now 
ranks as the largest, richest, and most populous mem¬ 
ber of the British Empire. 

Latin America 

The motives which led to Spanish colonization in 
America may be summed up in three words “gospel, 
glory, and gold.” Missionaries sought converts in 
the New World; warriors sought conquests; and 
adventurers sought wealth. Together, they created 
for Spain an empire greater in extent than any ever 
known before. After the middle of the sixteenth 
century homeseekers also came to the colonies, but 
never in such numbers as to crowd out the Indian 
aborigines. Intermixture between the races soon 
became common, resulting in the half-breeds called 
“mestizos.” Although the white element remained 
dominant in public affairs, the racial foundation of 


57 2 Colonial Expansion and World Politics 

most of Spanish America was and continues to be 
Indian. The fact is important, for the large propor¬ 
tion of imperfectly civilized Indians and half-breeds, 
together with the negroes who were soon introduced 
as slaves, operated to retard the progress of the Span¬ 
ish colonies. 

Spain governed her American colonies for her own 
benefit. She crippled their trade by requiring the 
inhabitants to buy only Spanish goods and to sell only 
to Spaniards. She prohibited such colonial manufac¬ 
tures as might compete with those at home. Further¬ 
more, she filled all the offices in Church and State 
with Spaniards born in the mother country, to the 
exclusion of those born in the colonies (the Creoles). 
1 his restrictive system made the colonists long for 
freedom, especially after they heard the stirring story 
of the revolutions which had created the United 
States and republican France. When Napoleon 
invaded Spain, forced the abdication of Ferdinand 
VII, and gave the crown to his own brother Joseph, 
the colonists set up practically independent states 
throughout Spanish America. 

Ferdinand VII, who returned to his throne after 
Napoleon’s overthrow, was a genuine Bourbon, 
incapable of learning anything or of forgetting any¬ 
thing. His refusal to satisfy the demands of the 
colonists for equal rights with the mother country 
precipitated the revolt against Spain. Its greatest 
heio is Simon de Bolivar, who, in addition to freeing 
his native Venezuela, helped to free the countries now 
known as Colombia, Ecuador, Bolivia, and Peru 
One by one all the colonies in South America 
together with Central America and Mexico, threw 
off the Spanish yoke. The United States followed 



I. . I ..I L. 


Territory lost by Spain 
Territory lost by “Portugal 

Note: Boundaries of Countries 
are shown as in 1918 
The first figure indicatesyear when 
movement for independence started. 
The second figure, year when 
ndependence was acknowledged 







































































































































































































































































































Latin America 


573 


the movement with sympathetic eyes, and sent com¬ 
missions to establish commercial relations with the 
revolting colonies. Great Britain also took an interest 
in their struggle for liberty and helped them with 
money, ships, and munitions of war. In 1826 the 
Spanish flag was finally lowered on the American 
continents. 

The people of Brazil also severed the ties uniting 
them to the mother country. They set up an inde¬ 
pendent empire in 1822, with Dorn Pedro, the oldest 
son of the Portuguese king, as its first ruler. He 
abdicated nine years later, in favor of his infant son. 
Brazil prospered under the benevolent sway of the 
second Dom Pedro, who was the last monarch to 
occupy an American throne. A peaceful revolution 
in 1889 overthrew the imperial government and trans¬ 
formed Brazil into a republic. 

The revolts from Spain and Portugal produced 
seven independent states in South America. These 
were subsequently increased to ten by the secession 
of Uruguay from Brazil and the break-up of the 
Great Colombia, established by Bolivar, into the 
three states of Venezuela, Ecuador, and Colombia. 
All the South American republics possess constitu¬ 
tions and the forms of democracy. Frequent revolu¬ 
tions and civil wars characterized their history dur¬ 
ing most of the nineteenth century. Nothing else 
could have been looked for, considering that the 
mass of semi-civilized Indians, half-breeds, and 
negroes lacked all political experience. They were 
easily swayed by ambitious politicians and generals, 
who often became dictators with well-nigh absolute 
power. But the South Americans have now served 
their apprenticeship to liberty. They are learning 


574 Colonial Expansion and World Politics 

to rule themselves, and the several states seem to be 
entering upon a period of settled, orderly govern¬ 
ment. 

The most prosperous, best governed, and by all 
odds the most important of South American states 
are Argentina, Brazil, and Chile. These states, it 
may be observed, are precisely the ones which have 
received the greatest amounts of foreign capital and 
the largest number of foreign immigrants. The three 
A-B-C powers—to use their popular designation— 
maintain very friendly relations and generally co¬ 
operate in furthering the interests of South America 
abroad. 

The Spanish dependencies in Central America 
declared tneir independence in 1821, and two years 
later formed a federation. It soon disintegrated into 
the five diminutive republics of Guatemala, Salvador, 
Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica. Subsequent 
attempts to bring them together were unsuccessful 
until 1921, when representatives of Salvador, Guate¬ 
mala, and Honduras signed a constitution creating the 
Federation of Central America. The adhesion of 
Costa Rica and possibly of Nicaragua is expected in 
the near future. The government of the new union is 

modeled to a large extent on that of the United 
States. 

Mexico also secured independence in 1821 only 
to enter upon a long period of disorder. Counting 
regencies, emperors, presidents, triumvirates, dicta¬ 
tors^ and other rulers, the “republic” had as many 
administrations during the first half century of its 
existence as the colony had viceroys throughout the 
whole period of Spanish rule. Porfirio Diaz gov¬ 
erned the country for many years, until an uprising 


The United States 


575 


in 1911 compelled him to withdraw to Europe. Civil 
conflict between rival generals and their followers 
then ensued. It has now died down, leaving Alvaro 
Obregon as the recognized president. The problems 
before him are difficult. Mexico needs not only a 
stable government, but also land reforms which will 
raise the “peons”—mostly ignorant Indians—from 
their condition of practical serfdom on the estates 
of great proprietors to that of free men. Whether 
these problems will be solved remains to be seen. 

Most of the smaller West India islands are still 
held by Great Britain, France, and Holland. Haiti, 
once a French possession, declared its independence 
at the time of the Revolution and successfullv resisted 
Napoleon’s efforts at reconquest. The two negro 
republics of Haiti and Santo Domingo now divide 
the island between them. Cuba, thanks to American 
intervention during the Spanish-American War, also 
forms a republic. The United States took Porto 
Rico from Spain in 1898 and in 1917 purchased from 
Denmark the three islands of St. Thomas, St. John, 
and St. Croix. Their acquisition reflects the increased 
importance of the West Indies to the American 
people. 

The United States 

The expansion of the United States beyond the 
limits fixed by the Treaty of Paris in 1783 began with 
the purchase of the Louisiana territory between the 
Mississippi River and the Rocky Mountains. This 
immense region, originally claimed by France in 
virtue of La Salle’s discoveries, had passed to Spain 
at the close of the Seven Years’ War and had been 
reacquired for France by Napoleon Bonaparte. The 



57 6 Colonial Expansion and World Politics 

French emperor, about to renew his conflict with 
Great Britain, realized that he could not defend 
Louisiana against the mistress of the seas. Rather 
than make a forced present of the country to Great 
Britain, he sold it to the United States for the paltry 
sum of $15,000,000. 

The possession of Louisiana gave the United States 
an outlet upon the Gulf of Mexico. This was greatly 
extended by the purchase of Florida from Spain in 
1819 and the annexation of Texas in 1845. The settle¬ 
ment of the dispute with Great Britain as to the 
Oiegon country, the Mexican Cession, and the Gads¬ 
den Purchase brought the United States to the 
Pacific. Every part of this western territory is now 
linked by trans-continental railroads with the Mis¬ 
sissippi Valley and the Atlantic-facing states. 

Alaska had been a Russian province since Bering’s 
voyages in the eighteenth century. Russia, however, 
never realized the value of her distant dependency 
and in 1867 sold it to the United States for $7,200,000. 
Since then Americans have taken from Alaska in gold 
alone many times the original cost of the territory, 
ts resources in coal, lumber, agricultural land, and 
fisheries are also very great. 

Tn j h ^, Iast decade °f the nineteenth century the 
United States began to secure possessions overseas, 
he Hawaiian Islands, lying about two thousand 

™o' o S °£, the C ° ast ° f Calif °rnia, were annexed in 

• ui- Th ’ S aCtl ° n WaS taken at the request of the 
inhabitants. The same year saw the acquisition of the 

Philippines Guam, and Porto Rico, as the result of 

nnVir n th , P w The Samoan island of Tutuila 
and the Danish West Indies (renamed the Virgin 

Islands) have also come into American hands. 


The United States 


577 


The United States, though not unwilling to obtain 
colonies in the New World, denies the right of any 
European nation to acquire additional territory here. 
This policy of “America for Americans” is known 
as the Monroe Doctrine. It was first formulated 
partly to stave off any attempt of the Old World 
monarchies, led by Metternich, to aid Spain in the 
reconquest of her colonies, and partly to prevent the 
further extension southward of the Russian province 
of Alaska. The interests of Great Britain in both 
these directions coincided with those of the United 
States. Relying on the support of the British govern¬ 
ment, President Monroe sent his celebrated message 
to Congress (1823), m which he declared that the 
American continents were henceforth “not to be con¬ 
sidered as subjects for future colonization by any 
European powers.” 

The solemn protest of the United States, backed 
by Great Britain, removed for a time the danger of 
European interference in America. During the 
Civil War, however, Napoleon III took advantage 
of our difficulties to send a French army to Mexico. 
It conquered the country and set up the archduke 
Maximilian, brother of Francis Joseph I, as emperor. 
The United States protested vigorously, and after the 
close of the Civil War required Napoleon III, under 
threat of hostilities, to withdraw his troops. The 
French Empire in Mexico then quickly collapsed. 
No further assaults on the Monroe Doctrine have 
occurred. 

The enforcement of the Monroe Doctrine makes 
it necessary for the United States not only to defend 
the Latin-American republics against foreign aggres¬ 
sion, but also to intervene from time to time in their 











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57^ Colonial Expansion and World Politics 

domestic affairs. Our warships and soldiers have 
been repeatedly sent to the West Indies, Mexico, 
and Central America for the purpose of protecting 
American and European citizens and their property 
from rioters or revolutionists. Though grateful to 


Relief Map of the Panama Canal 

hei mighty neighbor lor help, Latin America has 
trembled lest our intervention to restore order might 
pass into downright conquest. The benevolent pur¬ 
poses of this country are now being better under¬ 
stood. It has inaugurated a series of Pan-American 


ATLANTIC 

OCEAN 




PACIFIC 

OCEAN 




























































































The United States 


579 


conferences, composed of delegates from all the inde¬ 
pendent nations of the New World. With the assist¬ 
ance of the Latin-American republics, it has also 
established the Pan-American Union at Washington, 
which seeks to spread information about the resources 
and trade of the different countries and also to culti¬ 
vate friendly relations between them. The coopera¬ 
tion of most of the Central American and South 
American nations with the United States, during the 
World War, cannot fail to strengthen the bonds 
between the republics of the New World. 

The idea of an artificial waterway at Panama or 
some other suitable point had been broached almost 
as soon as the Spanish conquest of Central America 
and had been repeatedly discussed for more than 
three centuries. Nothing was done until 1881, when 
a French company, headed by De Lesseps, began 
excavations at Panama. Extravagance and corrup¬ 
tion characterized the management of the company 
from the start; it went into bankruptcy before the 
work was half done. The United States in 1902 
bought its property and rights for forty million dol¬ 
lars. Shortly afterwards, the secession of Panama 
from Colombia enabled the United States to obtain 
from the new republic occupation and control of a 
canal zone, ten miles wide, for the purposes of the 
canal. The work was completed in 1914. It is now 
open to the shipping of all nations, on the payment 
of moderate tolls. The Panama Canal is bound to 
exercise a profound effect upon the relations of North 
America and South America, because it so lessens the 
distance between the Atlantic, the Gulf, and the 
Pacific coasts of the New World. This means lower 
freight rates and improvement in the passenger and 


S^o Colonial Expansion and World Politics 

mail service. Increased commerce, travel, and com¬ 
munication will do much in the future to bring to¬ 
gether and keep together the two Americas. 

Close of Geographical Discovery 

Half the globe was still unmapped in 1800. Can¬ 
ada, Alaska, and the Louisiana territory were so little 
known that a geography published at this time omits 
any reference to the Rocky Mountains. South 
America, though long settled by white men, con¬ 
tinued to be largely unexplored. Scant information 
existed about the Pacific islands and Australia. Much 
°f Asia remained sealed to Europeans. Accurate 
knowledge of Africa did not reach beyond the edges 
of that continent. The larger part of the Arctic 
realm had not yet been discovered, and the Antarctic 
realm had barely been touched. 

Discoveries and explorations during the nineteenth 
century carried forward the geographical conquest 
of the world. The great African rivers were traced 
to their sources in the heart of what had once been 
the Dark Continent.” In Asia, the headwaters of 
the Indus and the Ganges were reached; the Hima¬ 
layas measured and shown to be the loftiest of moun¬ 
tains; Tibet, the mysterious, penetrated; and the veil 
of darkness shrouding China, Korea, Indo-China, 
and other Asiatic countries lifted. 1 ravelers pene¬ 
trated the deserts of inner Australia and finally 
crossed the entire continent from south to north. The 
journeys of Alexander von Humboldt in the Amazon 
and Orinoco valleys (1799-1804) inaugurated the 
systematic exploration of South America, while those 
of Lewis and Clark (1804-1806) opened up the 
Louisiana territory. Still later, Alaska, the northern 


Close of Geographical Discovery 581 

territories of Canada, and Labrador began to emerge 
from their obscurity. Even Greenland was crossed 
by Nansen, a Norwegian, and its coast was charted 
by Danish geographers and the American Peary. 

Voyages in search of the Northwest Passage had 
already revealed the labyrinth of islands, peninsulas, 
and ice-bound channels north of the American con¬ 
tinent. Many heroic but fruitless attempts had also 
been made to reach the North Pole. Nansen in 1892- 
1895 utilized the ice drift to carry his ship, the Fram, 
across the polar sea. Finding that the drift would not 
take him to the pole, he left the Fram and with a 
smgle companion advanced to 86 14/ N., or within 
two hundred and seventy-two miles of the pole. An 
Italian expedition, a few years later, got still farther 
north. The honor of actually reaching the pole was 
carried off by Peary in 1909. He traveled the last 
stages of the journey by sledge over the ice and 
reached his goal in company with a colored servant 
and several Eskimos. Nansen’s and Peary’s journeys 
showed that no land exists in the north polar basin, 
only a sea of great but unknown depth. 

The south polar region, on the other hand, is a land 
mass of continental dimensions. First approached 
by Cook on his second voyage, it has since been visited 
by many explorers. They have traced the course of 
the great ice barrier, discovered extensive mountain 
ranges, and even found two volcanoes belching forth 
lava amidst the snows. In 1907-1909 a British expe¬ 
dition under Sir Ernest Shackleton attained 88° 23' S., 
or within ninety-seven miles of the pole. Amundsen, 
who reached the pole in 1911, was soon followed by 
Captain R. F. Scott, but this gallant Englishman and 
his four companions died of cold and starvation on 



582 










































Close of Geographical Discovery 583 

the return journey. The records of polar exploration 
are, indeed, full of tragedies. 

Considerable spaces of the earth’s surface still 
await scientific investigation. The Antarctic conti¬ 
nent and Greenland offer many problems to geogra¬ 
phers. The enormous basin of the Amazon is still 
little known. Practically no knowledge exists of the 
interior of New Guinea, the largest of islands, if 
Australia be reckoned as a continent. Australia itself 
has not been completely explored. In Asia, there is 
still much information to be gained concerning the 
great central plateau, the Arctic coast, and inner 
Arabia. Equatorial Africa affords another promis¬ 
ing field for discovery. It thus remains for the 
twentieth century to complete the geographical con¬ 
quest of the world. 


CHAPTER XVII 


THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION 

Modern Industrialism 

The year 1776, the year of the Declaration of Inde¬ 
pendence and of Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations, 
also marks, approximately the commencement of the 
Industrial Revolution. No other word except “revo¬ 
lution’ so well describes those wholesale changes in 
manufacturing, transportation, and other industries, 
which, within a century and a half, have transformed 
modern life. 1 his revolution originated in Great 
Britain, spread after 1815 to the Continent and the 
United States, and now extends throughout the civil¬ 
ized world. 

The rapid expansion of European peoples over 
Africa, Asia, Oceania, and America, as described in 
the preceding chapter, was itself largely an outcome 
of the Industrial Revolution. Improvements in 
means of transportation—railroads, canals, steam 
navigation by facilitating travel permitted an exten¬ 
sive emigration from Europe into other continents. 
Improved communication—the telegraph and the 
telephone by annihilating distance made easier the 
occupation and government of remote dependencies. 
The growth of manufacturing in Europe also gave 
increased importance to colonies as sources of supply 
for raw materials and foodstuffs, as markets for fin¬ 
ished goods, and as places of investment for the 
surplus wealth accumulated by the capitalists whom 
the Industrial Revolution created. 

584 



Modern Industrialism 585 

The Industrial Revolution also created a numerous 
body of wage-earners, who moved from rural dis¬ 
tricts and villages into the factories, sweatshops, and 
tenements of the great cities. There, in spite of a 
crowded, miserable existence, they gradually learned 
the value of organization. They formed trade unions 
in order to secure higher wages and shorter hours. 
They read newspapers and pamphlets, listened to 
speeches by agitators, and began to press for laws 
which would improve their lot. Then they went fur¬ 
ther and demanded the right to vote, to hold office, 
to enjoy all the liberty and equality which the bour¬ 
geoisie, or middle class, had won from monarchs and 
aristocrats. The Industrial Revolution furnished 
much of the driving power for the democratic move¬ 
ment in Europe during the nineteenth century. It 
thus reinforced the new ideas of democracy intro¬ 
duced by the American and French revolutions. 

The Industrial Revolution likewise fostered the 
national movement in Europe during the last cen¬ 
tury. Railroads, canals, steamboats, telegraphs, and 

'■w 

telephones have been compared to a network of veins 
and arteries carrying the blood of the nation from the 
capital to the remotest province. Such increased 
facilities for travel and communication inevitably 
caused the disappearance of local prejudices and 
provincial limitations. It was now far easier for the 
people of each country to realize their common inter¬ 
ests than when they lived isolated in small rural 
communities. Old nations, like Great Britain and 
France, became more closely knit; new nations, like 
Italy and Germany, arose; and the “submerged 
nationalities” of Europe started an agitation for 
self-government or for complete independence. 


586 


Jhe Industrial Revolution 


Great Britain took the lead in the Industrial 
Revolution. Her damp climate proved to be very 
favorable to the manufacture of textiles, her swift 
streams supplied abundant water power for machin¬ 
ery, and beneath her soil lay stores of coal and iron 
ore. There were other favoring circumstances. 
Industry in Great Britain was less fettered by guild 
restrictions than on the Continent. She possessed 
more surplus capital for investment, more skilled 
laboreis, and a larger merchant marine than any 
other country. Furthermore, Great Britain had 
emerged from the Seven Years’ War victorious over 
all her rivals for maritime and commercial suprem¬ 
acy. Her trade in the markets of the world grew by 
leaps and bounds after 1763. The enormous demand 
for British goods in its turn stimulated the mechani¬ 
cal genius of British artisans and so produced the era 
of the great inventions. 


The Great Inventions 

Man has advanced from savagery to civilization 
chiefly through invention. Beginning in prehistoric 
times, he slowly discovered how to supplement hands 
and feet and teeth and nails by the use of tools. From 
tie tool it was a forward step to the machine, which 
when supplied with muscular energy, only needed to 
e directed by man to do his work. The highest type 
of machine is one driven by natural forces—by wind 
waterfall, steam, gas, or electricity. Invention thus 
gives man an ever-increasing control over nature, 
e becomes nature’s conqueror, rather than her slave 

inclui St I Preh !f° riC t0 ° IS and machine s would 
nclude levers, rollers, and wedges; oars, sails, and 

rudders; fishing nets, lines, and hooks; the plow and 

















































































The Great Inventions 


587 

the wheeled cart; the needle, bellows, and potter’s 
wheel, the distaff and spindle for spinning; and the 
hand loom for weaving. Few important additions 
to this list were made in antiquity, even by such culti¬ 
vated peoples as the Egyptians, Babylonians, Greeks, 
and Romans. The Middle Ages were also singularly 
barren of inventions. It was only toward the close of 
the medieval period that the mariner s compass, 
paper, and movable type reached Europe from Asia. 
More progress took place during the sixteenth and 
seventeenth centuries, which produced the telescope, 
microscope, thermometer and barometer, clocks and 
watches run by weights, sawmills driven by wind or 
water, an improved form of the windmill, and the 
useful though humble wheelbarrow. Manufacturing 
and transportation continued, however, to be carried 
on in much the same rude way as before the dawn 
of history. 

The revolution in manufacturing began with the 
textile industry. Old-fashioned spinning formed a 
slow, laborious process. The wool, flax, or cotton, 
having been fastened to a stick called the distaff, was 
twisted by hand into yarn or thread and wound upon 
a spindle. The spinning wheel—long known in 
India and not unknown in Europe as early as the 
fourteenth century—afterward came into general 
use. The spinner now did not hold the spindle in 
her hand, but set it upon a frame and connected it 
by a belt to the wheel, which, when revolved, turned 
the spindle. The subsequent addition of a treadle to 
move the wheel freed both hands of the spinner, so 
that she could twist two threads instead of one. 

Weaving was done on the hand loom, a wooden 
frame to which vertical threads (the warp) were 



588 The Industrial Revolution 

attached. Horizontal threads (the weft or woof) 
were then inserted by means of an enlarged needle or 
shuttle. The invention of the “flying shuttle” in the 
eighteenth century enabled the operator, by pulling 
a cord, to jerk the shuttle back and forth without the 
aid of an assistant. This simple device not only saved 
labor but also doubled the speed of weaving. 

The demand for thread and yarn quickly outran 
the supply, for the spinners could not keep up with 
the weavers. Prizes were then offered for a better 
machine than the spinning wheel. At length, James 
Hargreaves, a poor workman of Lancashire in north¬ 
ern England, patented what he named the “spinning 
jenny,” in compliment to his industrious wife. This 
machine carried a number of spindles turned by 
cords 01 belts from the same wheel, and operated by 
hand. It was a very crude affair, but it spun at first 
eight threads, then sixteen, and within the inventor’s 
own lifetime eighty, thus doing the work of many 
spinning wheels. 

The thread spun by the “spinning jenny” was so 
fiail that it could be used only for the weft. The 
spinners needed a machine to produce a hard, strong 
thread for the warp. Richard Arkwright met this 
need by the invention of the “water frame,” so called 
because it was run by water power. The machine 
contained two sets of rollers, one rotating at a higher 
speed than the other. The cotton was drawn out by 
the rollers to the requisite fineness and was then 
twisted into thread by revolving spindles. 

Samuel Crompton soon combined the essential 
features of the Hargreaves and Arkwright machines 
into what became known as the “mule,” because of 
its hybrid origin. When the mechanism was drawn 


The Great Inventions 589 

out on its wheels one way, the strands of cotton were 
stretched and twisted into threads 5 when it was run 
back the other way, the spun threads were wound 
on spindles. The “mule” quite superseded Har¬ 
greaves s device. It has been steadily improved, and 
at the present time may carry as many as two thou¬ 
sand spindles. 

These three inventions again upset the balance in 
the textile industry, for now the spinners could pro¬ 
duce more thread and yarn than the weaver’s could 
convert into cloth. The invention which revolution¬ 
ized weaving was made by Edward Cartwright, 
an English clergyman, who had never even seen a 
weaver at work. He constructed a loom with an auto¬ 
matic shuttle operated by water power. Improve¬ 
ments in this machine enable a single operator to 
produce more cloth than two hundred men could 
weave on the old-fashioned hand loom. 

Both spinners and weavers required for the new 
machinery an abundant supply of raw material. 

. They found it in cotton, which previously had been 
much less used than either wool or flax. Eli Whit¬ 
ney of Connecticut, while visiting a cotton plantation 
in Georgia, conceived the idea of what he called an 
engine, or gin, for separating the seeds from the raw 
cotton much more rapidly than negro slaves could 
do it by hand. His cotton gin stimulated enormously 
American production of cotton for the mills of Great 
Britain. 

What was to furnish motive power for the new 
machinery? Windmills were obviously too unrelia¬ 
ble to be profitably used. Human hands had at first 
operated Hargreaves’s “spinning jenny,” and horses 
had worked Arkwright’s original machine. Both 


59 ° The Industrial Revolution 

inventors, however, soon turned to water power to 
drive the wheel, and numerous mills were built along 
the streams of northern England. Then came steam 
power. The expansive force of steam, though known 
in antiquity, was first put to practical service at the 
close of the seventeenth century, when steam pumps 
were invented for ridding mines of water. James 
Watt, a Scotchman of mechanical genius, patented an 
improved steam pump in 1769 and subsequently 
adapted his engine for the operation of spinning 
machines and looms. In 1785 it began to be used in 
factories. 

The nineteenth century has been called the age of 
steam. The steamboat, the steam locomotive, and the 
steam printing press are some of the children of 
Watt’s epochal invention. Toward the close of the 
century electricity began to compete with steam as 
a motive force, after the invention of that mystic 
marvel of science, the dynamo, and in the twentieth 
century the gas engine, as applied to automobiles, 
airplanes, tractors, and other machines, continued the 
Industrial Revolution. 

The growing use of machinery called for an 
incieased production of iron. Northern and north- 
central England contained vast deposits of iron ore, 
but until the latter part of the eighteenth century 
they had been little worked. Improved methods of 
smelting with coal and coke, by means of the blast 
furnace, were then adopted. Steel, a product of iron, 
whose toughness and hardness had been prized for 
ages, was not manufactured on a large scale until 
after 1850. Better methods of manufacture now 
enable the poorest iron to be converted into excellent 
steel, thus opening up extensive fields of low-grade 


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The Great Inventions 


59i 


ore in France, Germany, and other countries. Steel is 
used in every form from building girders to watch 
s p nngs. It is now the mainstay of modern industry. 

I he manufacture of iron and steel and the opera¬ 
tion of the new machinery required an abundant 
inexpensive fuel. Coal had long been burned in 
small quantities for domestic purposes; applied to 
the steam engine and the blast furnace it was to 
ecome an almost boundless source of power and 
heat. Various improvements in mining cheapened 
its production, one of the most notable being the 
safety lamp, which protected miners against the 
deadly fire-damp and thus enabled the most danger¬ 
ous mines to be worked with comparative safety. 
Great Britain furnished nearly all the coal for manu¬ 
facturing until the middle of the nineteenth century; 
later, much of the world’s supply has come from the 
mines of France, Germany, and the United States. 

Mineral oil, or petroleum, has become an indus¬ 
trial rival of coal, since the first oil well was sunk in 
Pennsylvania in 1859. There are now more than 
three hundied products of petroleum, the most 
important being kerosene for illumination, gasolene 
(petrol) for gas engines, and fuel for oil-burning 
ships and locomotives. The United States is still the 
chief producer of oil, but we now consume even more 
than we produce. Our national requirements in 
1918 amounted to four hundred and thirteen million 
barrels, a quantity equal to the flow of water over 
Niagara Falls for three hours. Many new sources 
of supply will have to be opened up throughout the 
world, if the present consumption of petroleum in 
the United States, Great Britain, and other countries 
is to continue indefinitely. 


592 


The Industrial Revolution 


Effects of the Great Inventions 

The great inventions, besides hastening the transi¬ 
tion from hand-labor to machine-labor, also did 
much to separate labor and capital. No such sepa¬ 
ration was possible in the Middle Ages. A master 
who belonged to a craft guild purchased his raw 
materials at the city market or at a fair, manufac¬ 
tured them in his own house, assisted by the members 
of his family and usually by a few journeymen and 
apprentices, and himself sold the finished article to 
the person who had ordered it. This guild system, as 
it is called, has not entirely disappeared. One may 
still have a pair of shoes made by a “custom” shoe¬ 
maker or a suit of clothes made by a “custom” tailor. 

The growing exclusiveness of the craft guilds, 
toward the close of the medieval period, prevented 
many apprentices and journeymen from ever becom¬ 
ing masters. Consequently, workers often left the 
cities and settled in the country or in villages where 
there were no guild restrictions. The movement gave 
rise to the domestic system, as found, for example, 
in the Biitish cotton industry. A middleman with 
some capital would purchase a supply of raw cotton 
and distribute it to the spinners and weavers to con¬ 
vert into cloth on their own spinning wheels and 
hand looms. They worked at home and usually 
eked out their wages by cultivating a small garden 
plot. Something akin to the domestic system still 
survives in the sweatshops of modern cities, where 
clothing is made on “commission.” 

It is clear that under the domestic system the mid¬ 
dleman provided the raw materials, took all the 
risks, and received all the profits. The workers, on 



Longitude West 2° from Greenwich 0° 


593 





























































































594 The Industrial Revolution 

the other hand, had to accept such wages and labor 
upon such conditions as he was willing to offer. The 
separation of labor and capital, which thus began 
under the domestic system, became complete under 
the factory system. Arkwright’s, Crompton’s, and 
Cartwright’s machines were too expensive for a sin¬ 
gle family to own; too large and heavy for use in 
private houses; and they needed water power or 
steam power to operate them. The consequence was 
that the domestic laborer abandoned his household 
industry and went with hundreds of others to work 
in a mill or factory. The capitalist employer now 
not only provided the raw materials and disposed of 
the finished product, but he also owned the machin¬ 
ery and the workshop. The word “manufacturer” 
no longer applied to the hand-worker, but to the 
person who employed others to work for him. 

The factory system introduced a minute division 
of labor into industry. Thus, there are forty opera¬ 
tions involved in the manufacture of ready-made 
clothing; nearly one hundred in the manufacture of 
shoes, and over a thousand in the construction of a 
fine watch. Many men, working together, may turn 
out in a few minutes an article which one man for¬ 
merly required weeks or months to produce. 

Machinery, the factory system, and the division of 
labor made it possible to manufacture on a large 
scale and in enormous quantities for world-wide mar¬ 
kets. For example, the value of British cotton goods 
has increased six hundred per cent during the last cen¬ 
tury and a half. Similar increases have been regis¬ 
tered in other textile manufactures and in the iron 
industry of Great Britain. 

The Industrial Revolution soon changed the face 












































































































































Effects of the Great Inventions 


595 


of Great Britain. Instead of farms, hamlets, and an 
occasional small town, appeared great cities crowded 
with workers who had left their rural homes to seek 
employment in factories. The movement of popula¬ 
tion was especially toward the northern and north¬ 
western counties, where there were many streams to 
furnish water power, and abundant supplies of coal 
and iron. The Industrial Revolution began later on 
the Continent than in Great Britain, partly because 
of the opposition of the guilds, which feared that 
the new machinery would deprive workers of 
employment; partly because Continental manufac¬ 
turers showed less enterprise than their British rivals; 
but chiefly because the revolutionary and Napol¬ 
eonic wars left France and Germany too exhausted 
to compete in manufacturing. Great Britain thus 
became by 1815 the world’s workshop and the rich¬ 
est of European nations. 

The map of the occupations of mankind affords 
a summary view of the progress of the Industrial 
Revolution throughout the world. As far as Europe 
is concerned, we see that the western half of the con¬ 
tinent has now been pretty thoroughly industrialized, 
except for such areas as western Ireland, northern 
Scotland, central Spain, southern Italy, the Alpine 
region, and the Scandinavian peninsula. The indus¬ 
trial development of Russia is limited to the western 
and southern sections; that of the Balkan states is 
negligible. Large and growing manufacturing dis¬ 
tricts are found in India, China, Japan, eastern Aus¬ 
tralia, and New Zealand. The manufacturing dis¬ 
tricts of Africa and South America are too slight for 
representation on a small-scale map. In North 
America both Mexico and Canada have begun to 


59^ The Industrial Revolution 

share with the United States in the benefits of the 
Industrial Revolution. 

Improvements in Transportation 

Civilized man until the Industrial Revolution con¬ 
tinued to use the conveyances which had been 
invented by uncivilized man in prehistoric times. 
Travel and transport were still on horseback, or in 
litters, wheeled carts, rowboats, and sailboats. Vari¬ 
ous improvements produced the sedan chair, the 
stagecoach, and large ocean-going ships, without, 
however, finding any substitutes for muscles or wind 
as the motive power. 

The roads in western Europe scarcely deserved 
that name; they were little more than track ways, 
either deep with mud or dusty and full of ruts. Pas¬ 
sengers in stagecoaches seldom made more than fifty 
miles a day, while heavy goods had to be moved on 
pack horses. Conditions in Great Britain improved 
during the latter part of the eighteenth century, for 
the enormous quantity of goods produced by the new 
machinery increased the need for cheap and rapid 
transport. The turnpike system, allowing tolls to be 
charged for the use of roads, encouraged the invest¬ 
ment of capital by private companies in these under¬ 
takings; and it was not long before engineers covered 
the country with well-bottomed and well-surfaced 
highways. The splendid highways which attract 
the attention of Americans on the Continent were all 
built in the nineteenth century, chiefly before the era 
of railroads. 

The expense of transportation by road led people 
in antiquity and the Middle Ages to send their goods 
by river routes whenever possible. Canal-building 


597 


Improvements in Transportation 

in Europe began toward the close of the medieval 
period, especially after the invention of locks for 
controlling the flow and level of the water. The great 
era of the canal was between 1775 and 1850, not only 
in Great Britain and on the Continent, but also in 
the United States. Canals relieved the highways of 
a large part of the growing traffic, but the usefulness 
of both declined after the introduction of railroads. 
Ship canals, however, have begun to be constructed 
within recent years, as a result of the general adop¬ 
tion of steam navigation on the ocean. 

The earliest successful steamboat appears to have 
been a tug built in Scotland for towing canal boats. 
Robert Fulton, an American engineer who had lived 
in England and France, adapted the steamboat to 
river navigation. His side-wheeler, the Clermont, 
equipped with a Watt engine, began in 1807 to niake 
regular trips on the Hudson between New York and 
Albany. Twelve years later an American vessel, 
provided with both sails and a steam engine, crossed 
the Atlantic in twenty-nine days. The first ship to 
cross without using sails or recoaling on the way was 
the Great Western, in 1838. The trip took her fif¬ 
teen days. 

Various improvements since the middle of the 
nineteenth century added greatly to the efficiency of 
ocean steamers. Iron, and later steel, replaced wood 
in their construction, with a resulting gain in strength 
and buoyancy. Screw propellers were substituted for 
clumsy paddle wheels, and turbine engines, which 
apply the energy of a jet of steam to secure the rota¬ 
tion of a shaft, were introduced. The size of steam¬ 
ers, also, has so increased that the Great Western, a 
boat of 1378 tons and 212 feet in length, would 


59§ The Industrial Revolution 

appear a pygmy by the side of the fifty-thousand ton 
“leviathans” which now cross the Atlantic. 

Wooden or iron rails had long been used in mines 
and quarries to enable horses to draw heavy loads 
with ease. George Stephenson, who profited by the 
experiments of other inventors, produced in 1814 a 
successful locomotive for hauling coal from the mine 
to tide-water. He improved his model and eleven 
years later secured its adoption on the Stockton and 
Darlington Railway, the first line over which pas¬ 
sengers and freight were carried by steam power. 
Stephenson also built the Liverpool and Manchester 
Railway, on which his famous engine, the Rocket, 
made its maiden trip. 

Many technical improvements—the increased size 
of locomotives and cars, air brakes, and the use of 
steel rails in place of iron rails which supported only 
light loads and wore out rapidly—have extended the 
usefulness of the railroad far beyond the dreams of 
its earlier promoters. The greatest development of 
railroad transportation came in the latter part of the 
nineteenth century, with the construction of great 
trunk lines and branches (“feeders”) radiating 
into the remotest districts. Western Europe and the 
United States are now covered with a network of 
railroads, and these are being extended rapidly to 
all civilized and even semi-civilized lands. 

Modern electric traction dates from the early 
eighties of the last century, when the overhead trol¬ 
ley began to supplant horse cars and cable cars in 
cities. The development of the electric locomotive 
promises to bring about a partial substitution of elec¬ 
tricity for steam on railroads through tunnels and 
over heavy grades. 



599 


Improvements in Transportation 

The earliest application of steam power to trans¬ 
portation was neither the railway nor the steamboat, 
but the road engine. As far back as 1801 an English 
inventor constructed a steam carriage for passengers. 
Repeated efforts were made during the next forty 
years to popularize the new mode of travel in Eng¬ 
land, but bad roads and an unsympathetic public dis¬ 
couraged inventors. The automobile had to wait for 
the gas or “internal combustion” engine (as patented 
in the last decade of the nineteenth century) to 
become a commercial success. 

The history of the airplane illustrates the truth 
that great inventions do not spring fully developed 
from the brain of one man, but, on the contrary, rep¬ 
resent the long and patient experimentation of many 
men. An American scientist, S. P. Langley, who him¬ 
self owed much to the work of others, produced in 
1903 a heavier-than-air machine which was driven by 
steam. The accidents attending its first trials caused 
it to be abandoned. The Wright Brothers, using an 
airplane fitted with a gas engine, soon followed 
where Langley had led the way. As every one knows, 
the exigencies of the World War resulted in an 
extraordinarily rapid development of the airplane. 
Its powers were most strikingly revealed by two 
British aviators, Alcock and Brown, who in June, 
1919, made a non-stop flight across the Atlantic from 
Newfoundland to Ireland, covering the distance in 
less than sixteen hours. 

Experiments in balloon navigation continued 
throughout the nineteenth century, and finally Count 
Zeppelin, an officer in the German army, produced 
an airship which consisted, not of one balloon, but 
of a row of bags inclosed in an enormous shell of 


6oo 


The Industrial Revolution 


aluminum trellis work. It carried two cars, each 
provided with a gas motor. The trial of this Zeppe¬ 
lin in 1900 showed how nearly the problem of a 
dirigible balloon had been solved. Other successful 
airships were soon constructed in France and Eng¬ 
land. The World War stimulated their develop¬ 
ment, as was the case with the airplane. To the 
British dirigible, the R-34, belongs the renown of 
having been the first to cross the Atlantic (July 2-6, 
I 9 I 9). The R-34 carried a crew and passengers 
from Scotland to Long Island, covering the distance 
of 3200 miles in a trifle more than 108 hours. The 
return trip took only three days. 

As far back as the Revolutionary War, an Amer¬ 
ican inventor constructed a tiny submarine and tried, 
without success, to sink a British warship. Robert 
Fulton, encouraged by Napoleon, made several sub¬ 
marines. In one of them he descended to a depth of 
twenty-five feet, remained below for four hours, and 
succeeded in blowing up a small vessel with a tor¬ 
pedo. Under-water boats, propelled by steam power, 
were used by the Confederates in the Civil War. 
From about this time inventors in several countries 
worked on the problem of the submarine. One of the 
most successful was an Irish-American, J. P. Hol¬ 
land, who sold the boat named after’him to the 
United States in 1898. The improvement of the 
submarine from this time is a familiar story. Thus 
in the course of about a century, man has completed 
the conquest of land and air and sea. 

Improved Communication 

Scientists of the eighteenth century often discussed 
the idea of using electricity to communicate at a dis- 


Improved Communication 601 

tance, but a practicable apparatus for converting the 
electric current into intelligible signs did not appear 
until the thirties of the nineteenth century. Samuel 
F. B. Morse, an American, deserves perhaps the 
greatest credit for the invention. He also devised the 
“Morse alphabet.” The telegraph found an immedi¬ 
ate application on the railroads and in the transmis¬ 
sion of government messages. Later, it made its way 
into the business world. 

Hardly any one at first believed that a telegraph 
line could be carried across the ocean. Experiments 
soon showed, however, that wire cords, protected by 
wrappers of gutta percha, would conduct the electric 
current under water. The first cable was laid from 
Dover to Calais. A group of American promoters, 
including Cyrus W. Field, then took up the project 
of an Atlantic cable which should “moor the New 
World alongside the Old.” Discouraging failures 
marked the enterprise. The first cables were broken 
by the ocean, and the line which was finally laid 
soon became useless, owing to the failure of its elec¬ 
trical insulation. After the Civil War Field renewed 
his efforts, and in 1866 a cable two thousand miles 
long was successfully laid and communication per¬ 
fected. No less than fourteen lines now stretch 
across the Atlantic, while all the other oceans have 
been electrically bridged. 

Experimentation with rude forms of the telephone 
began in the same decade which produced the tele¬ 
graph. Little progress took place until 1875, when 
Alexander Graham Bell, a native of Edinburgh but 
later a resident of Boston, patented his first instru¬ 
ment. Many improvements have since been made in 
it by Bell himself, Thomas A. Edison, and others. 


602 


The Industrial Revolution 


The invention of wireless telegraphy by the Italian, 
Guglielmo Marconi, may be said to date from 1899, 
when wireless messages were sent between France 
and England across the Channel. A trans-Atlantic 
service by “wireless” began eight years later, and 
since then improvements of Marconi’s apparatus 
have enabled wireless messages to be sent half-way 
around the world. The still more recent introduc¬ 
tion of wireless telephony promises to work another 
revolution in long-distance communication. Already 

speech without wires is possible between Paris and 
New York. 

A regular postal service under government man¬ 
agement existed in Europe as early as the seventeenth 
century, but it was slow, expensive, and little used. 
Stamps were unknown, prepayment of postage was 
considered an insult, and rates increased according 
to distance. The modern postal service began in 
Great Britain in 1840, with the adoption of a uniform 
charge iirespective of distance (penny postage), 
prepayment, and the use of stamps. These reforms 
soon spread to other countries and everywhere 
resulted in greatly increased use of the mails. The 
International Postal Union, with a central office at 
Berne, Switzerland, makes arrangements for com¬ 
mon rates of foreign postage and for cooperation in 
carrying the mails from country to country. 

. W eekI Y and daily newspapers also began to appear 
in the seventeenth century, but they were luxuries 
reserved for subscribers of the middle and upper 
c asses. The cheap newspaper for the masses is a 
product of the Industrial Revolution. The London 
Ttmes installed the first steam printing press in 1814. 
A paper-making machine, which produced wide 


Commerce 


603 

sheets of unlimited length, came into use soon after. 
To these inventions must be added the linotype ma¬ 
chine. In newspaper offices, it has largely super¬ 
seded hand-work in setting type. 

Many inventions in communication—the instan¬ 
taneous camera, the cinematograph or motion picture, 
the phonograph, the automatic piano—are so new 
that we have scarcely as yet begun to realize their 
possibilities. Properly directed, they will furnish the 
common people in civilized countries with an edu¬ 
cation in art, music, and the drama which in former 
days could be secured only by persons of wealth and 
leisure. Their great service promises to be that of 
democratizing culture, as cheap newspapers and 
books have democratized knowledge. 

Commerce 

A tremendous expansion of commerce followed the 
improvements in transportation and communication. 
Macadamized roads, inland and ship canals, ocean 
steamships, and railroads reduced freight rates to a 
mere fraction of those once charged, while the tele¬ 
graph, telephone, cheap postage, and newspapers 
made possible the rapid spread of information relat¬ 
ing to crops and markets. It is estimated that the 
commerce of the world (including even backward 
countries) increased over twelve hundred per cent 
in the nineteenth century. Rapid as was the growth 
of the world’s population during this period, com¬ 
merce grew much faster; so that the average share 
of each human being in international trade amounted 
in 1900 to a sum six times that in 1800. During the 
first two decades of the twentieth century commercial 
expansion has been on a still more colossal scale. 


604 The Industrial Revolution 

The organization of commerce shows wonderful 
changes since the Middle Ages. There is now so 
steady flow of commodities from producers through 
wholesalers and retailers to consumers that the old sys¬ 
tem of weekly markets and annual fairs is all but ob¬ 
solete. Distinctively modern are produce exchanges 
for trade in the great staples (wheat, cotton, wool, 
sugar, etc.) and stock exchanges for buying and sell¬ 
ing the stocks and bonds of corporations. Specula¬ 
tion on the exchanges confers a benefit upon com¬ 
merce by safeguarding producers against the risks of 
sharp fluctuations in prices. When, however, it 
results in an artificial scarcity of commodities or 
securities through “corners” and “squeezes,” it 
becomes an economic evil. The difficulty in practice 
is to draw the line between legitimate speculation 
and simple gambling. 

The system of insurance is altogether an economic 
benefit, in view of the risks involved in most commer¬ 
cial undertakings. For a small payment the farmer 
insures his growing crop against hail or windstorm; 
the merchant, his stock against fire; the shipowner, 
his vessel against loss at sea. Marine insurance arose 
in medieval Tta 1 y, but for centuries it has centered 
in London. The first fire insurance policies were 
written in London after a great fire in the reign of 
Charles IT. Other forms of business insurance orig¬ 
inated much more recently. 1 he present tendency 
seems to be to insure against every possible contin¬ 
gency which can be foreseen. 

A commercial bank, as distinguished from a sav¬ 
ings bank or a trust company, may be defined as an 
institution which deals in money and credit. It 
attracts the deposits of many persons, thus gaining 


Commerce 


605 

control of enormous sums available for loans to 
manufacturers and merchants. Banks do not increase 
the amount of capital (factory buildings, machinery, 
raw materials, etc.) in a community, but they help 
to put it at the disposal of active business men 5 in 
other words, banks make capital fluid. Further¬ 
more, bank checks, drafts, and foreign bills of 
exchange provide a cheap and elastic substitute for 
money. It is possible through their use to discharge 
a large volume of indebtedness without the transfer 
of cash. 

The earliest medieval banks were the private 
establishments of moneyed men in Italian cities. 
Venice and Genoa subsequently founded public or 
state banks, and during the seventeenth, eighteenth, 
and nineteenth centuries similar institutions arose in 
many European capitals. All the great European 
banks, as well as the national banks of the United 
States, have the privilege of issuing redeemable notes 
which circulate in place of gold. 

In spite of the extensive use of checks and bank 
notes, the growth of commerce continues to absorb 
immense quantities of gold, the money metal. The 
supply has kept pace with the demand. The mines of 
California, Australia, South Africa, Alaska, and 
other countries produced in the second half of the 
nineteenth century nine times as much gold as had 
been produced between 1800 and 1850. 

The supply of silver increased during the nine¬ 
teenth century far in excess of the demand. Its 
declining value led the principal commercial states 
to diminish or suspend silver coinage. Great Britain 
first abandoned the double or bimetallic standard 
and adopted the single gold standard. Her example 


6o6 


The Industrial Revolution 


has been followed by the Continental nations, the 
British colonies, Japan, the South American repub¬ 
lics, Mexico, and the United States. China is the 
only important country which still continues to be on 
a silver basis. 

The almost universal use of gold as the standard 
of value facilitates the creation of a world market 
for money. Capitalists and bankers in progressive 
countries are thus enabled to supply funds for invest¬ 
ment in less progressive countries. Statisticians esti¬ 
mate that up to 1914 not less than twenty billion 
dollars had been invested abroad by Great Britain, 
about half of it in her colonies and about half in 
foreign lands. French investments in Russia and 
other countries totaled about ten billion dollars, 
while those of Germany abroad also reached an 
impressively high figure. All through the nineteenth 
century the United States was a debtor nation, since 
immense sums had been borrowed for the develop¬ 
ment of American railroads, mines, farms, and fac¬ 
tories. This situation changed with startling sudden¬ 
ness during the World War, when the Allied nations 
purchased in the United States enormous amounts of 
food, raw materials, and munitions. Not only has 
the United States wiped off its indebtedness to 
Europe; it has now made Europe its debtor. 

Commercial progress has been frequently inter¬ 
rupted during the past century by periods of depres¬ 
sion called crises. They are a product of the Indus- 
tiial Revolution. Arising in one country, perhaps as 
a result of bad banking, over-issue of paper money, 
speculation, unwise investments, or failure of crops', 
they tend to spread widely until all civilized coun¬ 
tries are involved. What happens during a crisis is 


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Commerce 


607 


familiar to every one. Capitalists refuse to invest in 
new railroads, factories, and other undertakings; 
bankers will not lend money; merchants, unable to 
borrow, go into bankruptcy; and manufacturers, 
receiving fewer orders, either reduce their output or 
shut down their plants. Then ensues a period of 
“hard times,” with low prices, low wages, much 
unemployment, and widespread destitution. The 
wave of prosperity sets in again, eventually, and 
times once more become “good.” Crises have 
occurred at intervals of about ten or eleven years 
since 1800, but recently with lessening severity. They 
may cease altogether as modern commerce becomes 
still more efficient. 

Many obstacles impeding the exchange of goods in 
the Middle Ages disappeared in modern times, espe¬ 
cially after the French Revolution. State police 
finally suppressed highway robbery. Piracy, once so 
common, became obsolete in the era of modern steam 
navigation. The burdensome tolls imposed by feudal 
lords on transportation and travel were no longer 
exacted, now that feudalism itself had died out. A 
movement also began to reduce the high duties levied 
by every European nation on imports and exports. 

One nation went still further in the nineteenth cen¬ 
tury and adopted free trade. Great Britain, we have 
learned, enjoyed by 1815 a virtual monopoly in most 
lines of industry. Having no reason to fear the com¬ 
petition of foreign manufacturers, it was to her advan¬ 
tage to lower or abolish the duties on imports, espe¬ 
cially those on raw materials. The Younger Pitt, 
influenced by the writings of Adam Smith, began the 
work of tariff reform; Sir Robert Peel continued it 
in the ’forties; and Gladstone completed it. Great 


6 o8 


The Industrial Revolution 


Britain is now a free-trade nation. She imposes no 

restrictions whatever on exports and levies import 

duties only on a few articles, including coffee, tea, 

tobacco, alcoholic liquors, and sugar. Even these 

. are for revenue, not for protection. They do not 

encourage the production at home of anything which 

can be produced more cheaply abroad. “To buy in 

the cheapest market and sell in the dearest” is the 
British policy. 

Another feature of the free-trade movement in 
Great Britain was the repeal of the Corn Laws. 
These laws restricted or entirely prohibited the 
importation of wheat or other grains, in the interest 
of British farmers and landlords. Manufacturers on 
tie other hand, objected to legislation which made 
food dear for the working classes. After prolonged 
agitation the laws were repealed in 1846. Since 
then Great Britain has secured the bulk of her food 
a road, from the fertile wheat areas of the United 
States and the British colonies, and has paid for it 
with the products of her mines and factories. 

l at T r e a 5 aV , lgati ° n K ActS WCre repealed three y^rs 

ter, after having been in operation for nearly two 
centuries. Foreign ships were henceforth allowed to 
compete with those of Great Britain in the carrying 
trade. Competition has resulted in lower freight 
rates and consequently in cheaper food for the Britfsh 

where h"??*?' £ ™ Vement s P read to the Continent, 
it led at first to a general lowering of tariff 

walls. In the last quarter of the nineteenth centurv 

rctume'd m 7“’ 3nd other “untries 

turned to the policy of protection. Rightly or 

wrongly, rhey saw in pr„,ec,,o„ ,he mean, 5 Z,° d ! 


Agriculture and Land Tenure 609 

ing up their own “infant industries,” in order to 
supply the home market and even to compete with 
Great Britain in the markets of the world. The tri¬ 
umph of protectionism thus formed a sequel to the 
intense nationalism which had developed in Europe. 
The economic cooperation of the Allies during the 
World War and their continued cooperation under 
the League of Nations may lead to a reaction in 
favor of freer commercial intercourse between them. 

Agriculture and Land Tenure 

The agricultural system of the Middle Ages, with 
its wasteful “open fields” and fallow lands, its back¬ 
ward methods, and its scanty yield, began to be revo¬ 
lutionized with the approach of modern times. The 
Dutch were the first scientific farmers, and from 
them English farmers learned many secrets of tillage. 
Deeper plowing, more thorough pulverization of the 
ground, more diligent manuring, the shifting or rota¬ 
tion of crops from field to field, so that the soil would 
not have to lie fallow every third year, and the intro¬ 
duction of new crops, including turnips, clover, and 
rye, were some of the improvements which doubled 
the yield of agricultural land. The weight of cattle 
and sheep was also increased by half through careful 
selection in breeding. 

The improvements in agriculture have now 
extended to every progressive country. Machinery 
replaces the ancient scythe, sickle, flail, and other 
implements. One machine, of American invention, 
not only reaps the grain, but threshes it, winnows it, 
and delivers it into sacks at a single operation. The 
introduction of cheap artificial fertilizers makes 
profitable the cultivation of poor lands formerly 


6 io The Industrial Revolution 

allowed to lie idle. The advance of engineering 
science leads to the reclamation of marshes and arid 
wastes. Finally, steam navigation allows a country 
to draw supplies of wheat, meat, and other foodstuffs 
from the most distant regions, with the result that 
the specter of famine, so common in the Middle 
Ages, has well-nigh disappeared from the modern 
world. 

The “open-field” system of cultivation, whereby 
the same person tilled many small strips in different 
parts of the manor, was so wasteful of time and labor 
that medieval farmers began to surrender their scat¬ 
tered strips for compact holdings which could be 
inclosed with hedges or fences and cultivated inde¬ 
pendently. This inclosure movement continued in 
western Europe all through the modern period, until 
in the nineteenth century the old “open fields” had 
been practically abandoned in favor of separate 
farms and individual tillage. 

Inclosures meant better farming everywhere, but 
in Great Britain they also helped to create the large 
estates so characteristic of that country. The lord of 
the manor, not satisfied with inclosing his demesne 
lands, often managed to inclose those of the peasants 
as well, and even the meadows and forests, which had 
been foimerly used by them in common. At the 
present time ten thousand persons own two-thirds of 
all England and Wales; seventeen thousand persons 
own nine-tenths of Scotland. 1 he rural population of 
Great Britain consists of a few landlords; numerous 
tenant farmers who rent their farms from the lords; 
and a still larger number of laborers who work for 
daily wages and feel no interest in the soil they till. 

British economists and statesmen have long felt 


Agriculture and Land Tenure 6 n 

that, as a mere matter of national safety, Great Britain 
ought to raise more of her own food supply. Were 
the country effectively blockaded in time of war, the 
starvation of its crowded industrial population would 
soon result. As a result of the World War, millions 
of acres formerly withdrawn from cultivation were 
put under the plow. Efforts have also begun to 
break up the large estates by such heavy taxes that 
it will be no longer profitable to hold them. There 
seems reason to believe that Great Britain may yet 
become what Ireland under the Land Purchase Acts 
has already become—a country of small farmers. 

A considerable part of the agricultural land 
belonged to the French peasants even before the 
Revolution. Their possessions increased in the 
revolutionary era, as the result of legislation confis¬ 
cating the estates of the Crown, the Church, and the 
emigrant nobles. France to-day is emphatically a 
country of small but prosperous and contented 
farmers. In no European state would a socialistic 
revolution, involving the abolition of private owner¬ 
ship of land, have fewer chances of success. 

The agrarian reforms of the French Revolution 
spread to Belgium, Holland, Switzerland, western 
Germany, and northern Italy, where peasant propri¬ 
etorships are common. They are rare in much of 
Spain and in southern Italy and Sicily. Central and 
eastern Europe remained under the medieval mano¬ 
rial system throughout the nineteenth century. The 
land was owned by a few noble families and was 
worked by peasants, either as tenants or as day labor¬ 
ers. Outside of Russia proper, there were five of 
these landed aristocracies; in eastern Germany 
(Brandenburg, Pomerania, West Prussia, East Prus- 


6 l2 


The Industrial Revolution 


sia), where serfdom disappeared only in the Napo¬ 
leonic era; in Austria-Hungary, where it disappeared 
during the disorders of 1848-1849; in the Baltic pro¬ 
vinces, controlled by nobles of German origin; in 
Poland and Lithuania; and in Rumania. The revo¬ 
lutionary movements since 1914 promise to destroy 
the land monopoly of the aristocrats in all these coun¬ 
tries. There will arise, instead, a new democratic 
society of peasant proprietors. This triumph of the 
small land owner in central and eastern Europe is 
an important economic result of the World War. ' 
. The abolition of Russian serfdom by Alexander II 
in 1858-1861, which freed nearly fifty million peo¬ 
ple, was followed by measures establishing a new 
system of land tenure. The nobles were required to 
sell a portion of their estates to the peasants, about 
half of the agricultural area of European Russia 
thus changing hands. Except in certain districts 
where individual ownership prevailed, "the farming 
land was intrusted to the entire village ( mir) for 
redistribution at intervals among the inhabitants. 
All that the peasant really possessed in his own right 
was a house and a garden plot. The Russian Revo¬ 
lution of 1917 broke up the mir economy and also 
enabled the peasants to appropriate the estates of the 
nobles. The Bolsheviki have been obliged to coun¬ 
tenance this procedure, in order to win the support 
of the peasantry. If Russia adopts complete indi¬ 
vidual ownership of land, it will mark a significant 
step in the progress of that country, where about 
nine-tenths of the population live wholly or mainly 
by agriculture.^ Russia may yet develop into one of 
the most stable of nations because its people have their 
feet on the ground, their own ground. 


The Labor Movement 613 

The Labor Movement 

The craft guilds, which modern Europe inherited 
from the Middle Ages, gradually became obsolete 
after the Industrial Revolution. They were out of 
place in a world of whirling machinery, crowded 
factories, free competition, and the separation of 
labor* and capital. Few of them in Great Britain 
survived the eighteenth century. In France it 
required a decree of the National Assembly to end 
their existence. Those in Germany did not com¬ 
pletely disappear until late in the nineteenth century. 

As contrasted with craft guilds, trade unions are 
combinations of wage-earners to maintain or improve 
the conditions under which they labor. These asso¬ 
ciations began to appear in Great Britain between 
1700 and 1800, especially after the domestic system 
gave way to the factory system. Under the new con¬ 
ditions of industry, an employer could not know many 
of his employees personally; their relations, hence¬ 
forth, tended to become cold-blooded and imper¬ 
sonal. At the same time, the workers in any one 
establishment or trade, being thrown more closely 
together, came to realize their common interests and 
to appreciate the need for organization. 

The unions immediately encountered opposition. 
The Common Law treated them as conspiracies in 
restraint of trade and hence as illegal. Moreover, 
the employers used their influence in Parliament to 
secure the passage of a long series of acts designed 
to prevent what were styled “unlawful combinations 
of workmen.” The last of these acts even provided 
the penalty of imprisonment at hard labor for per¬ 
sons who combined with others to raise wages, shor- 


6i 4 The Industrial Revolution 


ten hours, or in any way control the conditions of 
industry. 

Agitation by trade-union leaders induced Parlia¬ 
ment in 1825 to repeal all the Combination Acts and 
to replace them by a new and more liberal statute. 
Laborers might now lawfully meet together for the 
purpose of agreeing on the rate of wages or the num¬ 
ber of hours which they would work, as long as the 


agreement concerned only those who were present at 
the meeting. This qualification was removed a num¬ 
ber of years later. Finally, the Trade Union Act 
of 1875 declaied that nothing done by a group of 
laborers should be considered illegal unless it was 
also illegal when done by a single person. The act 
thus gave the working classes the full right of com¬ 
bination for which they had long been striving It 
has been called the Magna Carta of trade unionism. 

The trade unions of Great Britain have made much 

progress within recent years. They enroll several 

million factory operatives, railway workers, coal 

miners, and agricultural laborers. They send their 

representatives to Parliament and exercise great 

influence on labor legislation. Their officers also 

requently serve as factory inspectors. Many unions 

enjoy a considerable income, which goes to'support 

members who are temporarily out of work, sick, dis¬ 
abled, or infirm. 

Continental trade unions are modeled upon the 
Bntish organizations, but do not equal them in num- 

chlrarT k ’ ^ Man y have a political 

acter, being closely connected with socialist par¬ 
ies. n general, Continental workingmen relv for 
improvement in their condition rather upon State 

empToyers an UP ° n C ° lleCtiVe bar 2 ainin g ™th their 


Government Regulation of Industry 615 

The cooperative movement also started in Great 
Britain. There are in that country a large number 
of societies, open to workingmen on the payment of 
a small fee, and selling goods to members at prices 
considerably lower than those charged by private 
concerns. Members share in the profits in accord¬ 
ance with the amount of their purchases. The suc¬ 
cess of cooperation in retailing has brought about 
its extension to wholesaling and even to manufactur¬ 
ing and banking. Similar societies are numerous on 
the Continent. 

Government Regulation of Industry 

Improvement in the lot of the working classes has 
taken place not only through the activities of trade 
unions, cooperative societies, and other voluntary 
associations, but also by legislation. The need for 
government regulation of industry very soon became 
apparent. The crowded factories were unsanitary. 
Hours of labor were too long. Wages were on the 
starvation level. Furthermore, the use of machinery 
encouraged the employment of women and children, 
for whose labor there had been previously little 
demand outside the home. Their excessive toil amid 
unhealthful surroundings often developed disease and 
deformity or brought premature death. Much excuse 
existed for the passionate words of one reformer that 
the slave trade was “mercy compared to the factory 
system.” 

These evils were naturally most prominent in 
Great Britain, where the Industrial Revolution 
began. Little effort was made at first to remedy 
them. The working classes exercised no political 
influence; indeed, by the Combination Acts they had 


616 


The Industrial Revolution 


been prohibited from forming trade unions for their 
protection. Statesmen, instead of meeting the situa¬ 
tion by remedial legislation, adopted the laissez- 
faire, or “let-alone” policy. The government, they 
declared, should keep its hands off industry. The 
greatest good to the greatest number could only be 
secured when “economic laws” of supply and demand 


were allowed to determine the wages and conditions 
of employment, just as they determined the prices, 
quantity, and quality of commodities produced. 

Let alone” naturally became the watchword of 
selfish employers, to whose avarice and cruelty it gave 
free rein. \ et there were also humane employers 
who felt that the government ought to protect those 
who could not protect themselves. After some agi¬ 
tation the first British factory act was passed in 1802. 
This measuie, which applied only to cotton factories, 
prohibited the binding-out for labor of pauper chil¬ 
dren under nine years of age, restricted their working 
hours to twelve a day, and forbade night work. Lit¬ 
tle more was done for thirty-one years. During this 
time several philanthropists, among whom Lord 
Ashley, afterward earl of Shaftesbury, had the 
greatest influence, took up the cause of the oppressed 
workers and on the floor of Parliament, on the plat- 
°rm, in the pulpit, and in the newspapers wao-ed a 
campaign to arouse the public to the need of addi¬ 
tional legislation. The result was the passage in 1822 
Of an act which applied to all textile factories and 
provided for their regular inspection by public offi¬ 
cials. A few years later Ashley, whose life was 
devoted to philanthropy and social reform, carried 
through Parliament an act forbidding the employ¬ 
ment in mines of women and children. Parliament 


Government Regulation of Industry 617 

subsequently took the still more radical step of pass¬ 
ing the Ten-Hour Act, which limited the labor of 
women and children in textile factories to ten hours 
a day. This measure became a law only after the 
fiercest opposition on the part of many manufactur¬ 
ers, but it proved so beneficial that henceforth the 
desirability of factory legislation was generally 
admitted. 

Government regulation of industry now began to 
become a reality. Mines, bakeries, laundries, docks, 
retail and wholesale shops, and many other establish¬ 
ments were gradually brought under control. At the 
present time the State restricts the employment of 
children, so that they may not be deprived of an edu¬ 
cation. It limits the hours of labor, not only of chil¬ 
dren and women in most industries, but also of men 
in mines and factories. It requires employers to 
install safety appliances in their plants and to take 
all other precautions necessary for the preservation 
of the lives, limbs, and health of their employees. 
Recent legislation provides for the establishment of 
wage boards in certain “sweated trades,” where men 
and women work long hours for starvation pay. 
These boards, representing employees, employers, 
and the government, have power to fix a minimum 
wage—the lowest wage consistent with health and 
efficiency—and to forbid the payment of anything 
less, except to apprentices. The principle of the min¬ 
imum wage has also been extended to miners and 
agricultural laborers. The government supports 
employment bureaus or labor exchanges, in order 
that the idle may find work. A national insurance 
act provides for the compulsory insurance of nearly 
all employees against sickness and loss of employ- 




618 


The Industrial Revolution 


ment. An old-age pension law gives British subjects 
who have reached seventy years of age and who 
receive an income not exceeding £49, i ?s ., 6 d. (about 
$250) a year, a maximum pension of ioj. (about 
$2.50) weekly. It is now proposed that every citizen 
of the United Kingdom, irrespective of his income, 
shall be qualified to draw a pension, upon reaching 
the required age. 

The labor legislation of France, Belgium, Holland, 
Austria, and the Scandinavian states compares favor¬ 
ably with that of Great Britain. In no Continental 
country has it gone farther than in German\f. Bis¬ 
marck gave it his powerful support, in order to check 
the spread of socialism. Germany has laws establish¬ 
ing a maximum number of working hours, limiting 
child and female labor, and providing a system of 

workingmen’s insurance against accidents, sickness, 
incapacity, and old age. ’ 

The youthful commonwealths of Australia and 
New Zealand, unhampered by tradition, are trying a 
number of interesting experiments in government 
regulation of industry. Both countries give compen¬ 
sation to workingmen injured by accidents and old- 
age pensions to poor people. New Zealand, in addi¬ 
tion, provides fire, life, and accident insurance, con¬ 
ducts postal savings banks, rents model homes to 
workingmen, and makes arbitration of labor disputes 
compulsory, in order to do away with strikes If it 
turns out that under such paternalism more people 
are free and happy than under the individualism 
which prevails in the United States and even in Great 
Britain, then Australia and New Zealand will have 
set an example to the rest of the world; if it is found 

that too much public regulation cramps private enter- 

\ 


Public Ownership 619 

prise and takes away the incentive to industry, they 
will have warned the rest of the world off a dangerous 
course. But all this legislation is too recent for final 
judgment to be pronounced upon it. 

There has been a growing movement within recent 
years to secure concerted action by the various nations 
in the interest of the working classes. The move¬ 
ment received official recognition at the Peace Con¬ 
ference in 1919. The Peace Treaty with Germany 
establishes a permanent International Labor Office, 
under the League of Nations, and provides for annual 
international labor conferences to discuss needed 
legislation and recommend it to the different govern¬ 
ments. Like the League of Nations of which it forms 
a part, this new labor machinery has only begun to 
function, but it promises to become an agency of 
enormous usefulness. 

Public Ownership 

The modern State, in all civilized countries, does 
many things which private individuals themselves 
did during the Middle Ages. It maintains an army 
and navy, administers justice, provides a police sys¬ 
tem, and furnishes public education. No one now 
questions either the need or the desirability of such 
activities. As we have just learned, the State also 
subjects private industry to ever-increasing regula¬ 
tion for the benefit of the less fortunate members of 
society. Furthermore, it engages in a variety of 
industrial undertakings. 

Governments sometimes monopolize different 
branches of business in order to raise a revenue. A 
good instance is the tobacco monopoly of France. 
The postoffice is always in government hands, not so 


620 


The Industrial Revolution 


much for revenue as for the furtherance of cheap 
communication between different parts of the coun¬ 
try. In Great Britain and on the Continent tele¬ 
graphs and telephones are managed by the govern¬ 
ment in connection with the postoffice, and the gov¬ 
ernment parcel post does all the business which in 
the United States is partly absorbed by private express 
companies. Coinage is everywhere a public function, 
as well as banking in most European countries. In 
the United States banks are private institutions under 
state or national regulation. Germany and Russia 
have public forests; Prussia has public mines; and 
France has a number of canals belonging to the gov¬ 
ernment. 

On the Continent (Belgium, Switzerland, Italy, 
Germany, Austria, Russia) railroads are mostly State- 
owned and State-managed. Nearly all the French 
lines are privately owned, but they will revert to the 
government upon the expiration of their franchises. 
Great Britain and the United States took over their 
railroads for military purposes during the World 
War. The American lines, together with the express 
companies, have now been returned to private owner¬ 
ship. In Australia the government built the principal 
railroads and owns and operates all of them. 

Both British and Continental cities generally own 
and operate such public utilities as street railways 
gas and electric lighting plants, and waterworks! 

arkets slaughter houses, baths, pawn-shops, docks 
and harbor improvements are likewise often munici¬ 
pal monopolies. In the United States municipal 
ownership has been common in the case of water¬ 
works, somewhat less common in the case of electric 
lighting plants, rare in that of gas plants, and scarcely 


Socialism 


621 


known in that of street railways. Since free com¬ 
petition cannot prevail in these industries, the only 
choice is between municipal ownership or private 
ownership subject to municipal regulation of charges 
and service. 

It must now be obvious that the laissez-faire policy 
finds few adherents at the present time. Defense 
against external aggression, preservation of internal 
order, and the maintenance of a few public institu¬ 
tions do not exhaust the responsibilities of the State, 
as these are conceived to-day. The reaction against 
laissez-faire has been very marked during the last 
half century, one reason being the success of Germany 
in public regulation and ownership. Continental 
countries go farther in this direction than either Great 
Britain or the United States, because the Continental 
peoples have been accustomed to paternal rule for 
centuries. But as Australia and New Zealand show, 
even English-speaking peoples tend to abandon that 
system of “natural liberty” which, in Adam Smith’s 
words, leaves every man “perfectly free to pursue his 
own interests in his own way, and to bring both his 
industry and capital into competition with those of 
any other man or order of men.” 

Socialism 

Contemporary socialists unite in making the fol¬ 
lowing demands. First, the State shall own and 
operate the instruments of production, that is, land 
and capital. Under this arrangement rent, interest, 
and profits, as sources of personal income, would dis¬ 
appear, and private property would consist simply 
of one’s own clothing, household goods, money, and 
perhaps a house and a garden plot. Second, the 


622 


The Industrial Revolution 


leisure class shall be eliminated by requiring every¬ 
body to perform useful labor, either physical or men¬ 
tal. Third, the income of the State shall be dis¬ 
tributed as wages and salaries among the workers, 
according to some fairer principle than obtains at 
present. 


Socialism, thus explained, is not identical with pub¬ 
lic ownership of railroads, telegraphs, telephones, the 
postal service, and other utilities. There is still a 
leisure class and there are still personal incomes in 
those countries where public ownership has been 
most completely developed. Similarly, labor legisla¬ 
tion is not properly described as socialistic, since it 
fails to abolish private property, the factory system, 
and rent, interest, and profits. 

Socialism is, in part, an outcome of the Industrial 
Revolution, which completed the separation of capi¬ 
tal and labor. The gulf between the capitalist and 
the landless, propertyless, wage-earning proletariat 
became wider, the contrast between rich and poor 
became sharper, than ever before. Vastly more 
wealth was now produced than in earlier ages, but 
it was still unequally distributed. The few had too 
much; the many had too little. Radical reformers 
distressed by these inequalities and dissatisfied with 
tie slow progress of the labor movement and govern¬ 
ment regulation of industry, began to proclaim the 
necessity of a wholesale reconstruction of society. 

n Teat Britain the most prominentpf these early 
radicals was Robert Owen, a rich manufacturer and 
philanthropist, who did much to improve the con¬ 
ditions of life for his employees. Among his innova¬ 
tions were cooperative shops, where workmen could 
buy good things cheaply and divide the profits 


Socialism 


623 


between them. This principle of cooperative distri¬ 
bution subsequently attained great success in England, 
and Owen deserves credit as its originator. He also 
advocated cooperation in production. His special 
remedy for social ills was the establishment of small 
cooperative communities, each one living by itself on 
a tract of land and producing in common everything 
needed for its support. He thought that this arrange¬ 
ment would retain the economic advantages of the 
great inventions without introducing the factory sys¬ 
tem. Owen’s experiments in cooperation all failed, 
including the one which he established at New Har¬ 
mony, Indiana. Owen thus belongs in the class of 
Utopian socialists, men who dreamed of ideal social 
systems which were never realized. 

Socialism is also, in part, an outcome of the French 
Revolution. That upheaval destroyed so many time- 
hallowed institutions and created so many new ones 
that it gave a great impetus to schemes for the regen¬ 
eration of society. French radical thinkers soon set 
out to purge the world of capitalism as their fathers 
had purged it of feudalism. Their ideas began to 
become popular with workingmen after the factory 
system, with its attendant evils, gained an entrance 
into France. 

The workers found a leader in Louis Blanc, a 
journalist and author of wide popularity. The revo¬ 
lution of 1789, he declared, had benefited the peas¬ 
ants; that of 1830 the capitalists or bourgeoisie; the 
next must be for the benefit of the proletariat. Blanc 
believed that every man had an inalienable right to 
remunerative employment. To provide it, he pro¬ 
posed that the State should furnish the capital for 
national workshops. These were to be managed by 


624 


The Industrial Revolution 


the operatives themselves, who would divide the 
profits of the industry between them and thus elimi¬ 
nate capitalists altogether. Blanc’s ideas triumphed 
for a time in the “February Revolution” of 1848, 
which had been brought about by the Parisian prole¬ 
tariat. The second French Republic expressly 
recognized the “right to labor,” set up the national 
workshops, and promised two francs a day to every 
registered workingman. The drain upon the treasury 
and the demoralization of the people by this State 
charity soon led to the abandonment of the entire 
scheme The result was a popular uprising, only 
crushed by military force. It should be said in jus¬ 
tice to Blanc that the government appears to have 
purposely mismanaged the national workshops, in 
order to discredit the socialistic movement in France 

Meanwhile, a new socialism, more systematic and 
practical than the old, began to be developed by Ger¬ 
man thinkers. Its chief representative was Karl 

a K rX ' * T ' S , P. aren ts were well-to-do Jews who had 
embraced Christianity. Marx, as a young man, stud¬ 
ied at several German universities and received the 
egree of Doctor of Philosophy. Becoming inter¬ 
ested in economic subjects, he founded a socialist 

claTs S e P s aP Tt t0 adV ° Cate the C3USe ° f the working 
c asses. The government suppressed it after the 

ta.lure of the revolutionary movement of 1848-1840 

and expelled Marx from Germany. He wen/to 

London and lived there in exile for the rest of his 

days, finding time, in the midst of a hard struggle 

for existence, to write his famous work, Das KaSal 

It has a place beside Rousseau’s Social Contraband 

Smith’s Wealth of Nations among the books which 

have„ profoundly influenced huln 


Socialism 


625 

Marx felt little sympathy with Utopian schemes to 
make over society. In opposition to Owen, Blanc, 
and other earlier socialists, he sought to build up a 
system of socialism which should be based purely 
on economic principles. Marxism asserts that while 
labor is the source of all vaiue, laborers receive, in 
fact, only a fraction of what they produce. All the 
rest goes to the capitalistic bourgeoisie, or middle 
class, who produce nothing. Capitalism, however, 
is the inevitable result of the factory system. Like 
feudalism, it forms a stage, a necessary stage, in the 
development of mankind. It is fated to disappear 
with the progress of democracy, which, by giving the 
proletariat the vote, will enable them to displace the 
bourgeoisie, take production into their own hands, 
and peacefully inaugurate the socialist state. 

During the ’seventies of the last century the co¬ 
workers of Marx in Germany founded the Social 
Democratic Party. The government, under Bis¬ 
marck’s leadership, tried to suppress it by prohibiting 
meetings of socialists and the circulation of socialist 
literature. Any effort to propagate socialist doctrine 
was made punishable by fines and imprisonment. The 
police were also authorized to deport all suspected 
persons. Persecution failed to check the movement, 
which grew phenomenally. However, many persons 
voting for Social Democratic candidates were not 
socialists, but German liberals who wanted to protest 
as effectively as possible against autocracy and mili¬ 
tarism. 

The Social Democratic Party provided a model for 
similar organizations of Marxian socialists in Great 
Britain, France, Italy, Austria, Russia, and the other 
European countries, as well as in the United States, 




626 


The Industrial Revolution 


Australia, and Japan. Congresses of delegates from 
the national parties have been held from time to time, 
in order to bring together the working classes. In 
1914 the socialists throughout the world polled about 
eleven million votes and elected over seven hundred 
representatives to the various parliaments. 


Poverty and Progress 

The most important consequence of the Industrial 
Revolution is the increased population of the leading 
nations. The figures for Europe show an increase 
from about 175,000,000 to over 400,000,000 during 
the nineteenth century, and for the continental United 
States from about 5,000,000 in 1800 to over 105,000,- 
000 in 1920. The number of people who can be sup¬ 
ported in a given region now depends less on the food 
which they raise, than on their production of raw 
materials and manufactured goods to exchange for 
food. Thus Belgium and Great Britain, with only 
a limited agriculture, support more inhabitants to the 
square mile than any other countries. There are, of 
course, certain agricultural countries (Egypt, ’the 
Ganges valley and delta in India, part of China) 
where the exceptionally rich soil, coupled with a very 
ow standard of living on the part of the inhabitants, 
has also made possible an enormous growth of popu¬ 
lation within the last century. Little of the world is 
now entirely uninhabited; still less is permanently 
uninhabitable and unlikely to receive a considerable 
population in the future. Even sandy and alkaline 
deserts can be rendered productive through irrigation 
while vast tracts of fertile territory, in both temperate 

J d piCal zones > can support many more people 
than at present. " " 















































































Poverty and Progress 627 

The increased population of the leading industrial 
nations has been largely concentrated in cities. The 
rise of the factory system and the improvement of 
facilities for travel and transportation soon led to an 
unprecedented urban development. Old cities grew 
with marvelous rapidity, while former villages and 
towns became transformed into new cities. The con¬ 
centration of population is well illustrated in the case 
of the United States. This country in 1800 contained 
only six cities of over eight thousand inhabitants; 
now, according to the census of 1920, more than half 
of the American people are city dwellers. 

The Industrial Revolution is further chiefly 
responsible for the enormous emigration of Euro¬ 
peans during the past hundred years to lands beyond 
the seas. The United States received over 27,000,000 
immigrants between 1800 and 1910, nearly all coming 
from Europe. Millions more went to the British 
colonies and to South America. The migration 
movement has been most marked since the middle 
of the nineteenth century, when the improvements in 
steam navigation so greatly multiplied and cheapened 
facilities for travel on the ocean. 

The increased wealth of the leading nations is 
another consequence of the Industrial Revolution. 
Statistics of government revenues and expenditures, 
imports and exports, income tax returns, deposits in 
savings banks, and assets of life insurance companies, 
show how wealth has multiplied, especially within 
recent years. Other indications are furnished by the 
increase in the annual production of coal, in the 
amount of iron ore mined annually, in railway con¬ 
struction, and in the tonnage of merchant vessels. The 
enormous public loans, successfully floated during 


628 


The Industrial Revolution 


the World W ar, also reveal the resources now at the 
command of industrial peoples. 

Notwithstanding the creation of huge individual 
fortunes as the result of the Industrial Revolution, 
the general standard of living has been raised by the 
addition of innumerable things—sugar, coffee, linen, 
cotton goods, glass, chinaware, wall paper, ready¬ 
made clothing, books, newspapers, pictures—which 
were once enjoyed only by a few wealthy persons. 
If the rich are undoubtedly getting richer, the poor 
are not getting poorer in western Europe and the 
United States. As a matter of fact, poverty is most 
acute in such thickly populated countries as Russia, 
India, and China, which modern industrialism has 
only begun to penetrate. 

1 \ evertheless, no one conversant with social con¬ 
ditions in large cities can deny the existence there of 
very many people below or scarcely above the poverty 
line. Socialists allege that poverty is caused by the 
unequal and inequitable distribution of wealth under 
the present economic organization of society. The 
tiuth seems to be that no single condition—over-popu¬ 
lation, property in land, competition, the factory sys¬ 
tem—explains poverty, for each one has been absent 
in previous social stages. The causes of poverty, in 
tact, are as complex as modern life, some being due 
to faults of personal character or physical and mental 
defects, and others being produced by lack of educa¬ 
tion, bad surroundings, corrupt or inefficient govern¬ 
ment, and economic conditions which result in lack 

of employment, high cost of living, monopolies, and 
the like. 

Since there is no single cause of poverty, there can 
be no single remedy for it. Putting aside socialism 



Poverty and Progress 


629 


as undesirable, one may still look forward confidently 
to the prevention of much poverty by trade-union 
activity, by government regulation of industry (in¬ 
cluding old-age pensions, State insurance against 
sickness and disability, protection against non-em¬ 
ployment, and the minimum wage), by education of 
the unskilled, by improved housing, and by all the 
agencies and methods of private philanthropy. One 
may even reasonably anticipate the complete abolition 
of poverty, at least all suffering from hunger, cold, 
and nakedness, in those progressive countries which 
have already abolished slavery and serfdom. Indeed, 
with the increase of wages, the growing demand for 
intelligent work, and the spread of popular education, 
skilled laborers have multiplied so rapidly as to out¬ 
number those whose labor is entirely unskilled; they 
belong no longer to the “lower classes.” 

The evils of modern industrialism, though real, 
have been exaggerated. They are and were the evils 
accompanying the transition from one stage of society 
to another. Few would wish now to retrace their 
steps to an age when there were no factories, no rail¬ 
roads, and no great mechanical inventions. Machin¬ 
ery now does much of the roughest and hardest work 
and, by saving human labor, makes it possible to 
shorten hours of toil. The world’s workers, in conse¬ 
quence, have opportunities for recreation and educa¬ 
tion previously denied them. After one hundred and 
fifty years of modern industrialism, we begin to see 
that, besides helping to produce political democracy, 
it is also creating economic democracy. It is gradu¬ 
ally diffusing the necessaries and comforts, and even 
many of the luxuries of life, among all peoples in 
all lands. 


CHAPTER XVIII 


MODERN CIVILIZATION 

Internationalism 

The world, which seemed so large to our fore¬ 
fathers, to us seems very small and compact. Rail¬ 
roads, steamships, and airplanes bind the nations 
together, and the telegraph, the submarine cable, and 
the “wireless” keep them in constant communication. 
The oceans, no longer barriers, serve as highways 
uniting East and West, Orient and Occident. Com¬ 
merce and finance are international; capital finds 
investment in foreign countries as readily as at home • 
and trade unionism, labor legislation, and socialism 
become common to all the world. National isolation 
isappears as ideas and ideals tour the globe. 

Everywhere people build the same houses, use the 
same furniture, and eat the same food. Everywhere 
they enjoy the same amusements and distractions: 
concerts, “moving pictures,” the theater, clubs, maga¬ 
zines automobiles They also dress alike. Powder 
go d lace, wigs, pigtails, three-cornered hats, knee 
breeches, silk stockings, and silver-buckled shoes 
passed away , n revolutionary France with the other 
olhes of the Old Regime, and the loose coat and long 
rouse is of the working classes became the accepted 
style for mens apparel, not only in France but 
eventually in all civilized countries. Women’ 
appare still changes year by year, but the new 
fashions, emanating from Paris, London, or New 

630 


Internationalism 631 

York, are speedily copied in San Francisco, Mel¬ 
bourne, and Tokio. 

The inconveniences resulting from the diversity of 
languages were never greater than to-day, when 
travel is a general habit and when nations read one 
another’s books and profit by one another’s discov¬ 
eries and inventions. The internationalism of modern 
literature, science, philosophy, and art demands an 
international medium of expression. Latin was the 
speech of learned men in Europe throughout the 
Middle Ages, and French has been the speech of 
polite society and diplomacy for more than two cen¬ 
turies. What is needed, however, is a universal lan¬ 
guage, which can be readily mastered by any one. 
Crude attempts at such a language have already ap¬ 
peared in Volapiik and Esperanto, but a really satis¬ 
factory artificial idom remains to be created. 

Meanwhile, the spread of English-speaking peo¬ 
ples throughout the globe seems destined to make 
English, in some sort, a universal language. It is 
now used by perhaps 173 million people, either as 
their mother language or as an acquired tongue. 
Those using Russian are estimated at 100 millions; 
German, 80 millions; Italian, 50 millions; Spanish, 
30 millions, and French, 40 millions. The simple 
grammar and cosmopolitan vocabulary of English 
adapt it to an international role. In spite of an often 
arbitrary spelling and pronunciation, it is more 
easily learned than any other of the great languages 
of the world. 

The idea of a universal exposition, to which all 
countries should send their art treasures or the mar¬ 
vels of their industry, first took shape in the Crystal 
Palace Exhibition (London, 1851). Since then 


632 


Modern Civilization 


European expositions have been numerous, each one 
larger than its predecessors. The Universal Exhibi¬ 
tion (Paris, 1900) attracted 51,000,000 visitors. The 
United States began with the Philadelphia Centen¬ 
nial of 1876. This was followed by the World’s 
Fair at C hicago in 1893 an d by the more recent expo¬ 
sitions at St. Louis and San Francisco. 

World congresses are constantly being held to deal 
with such matters of common interest as the metric 
system of weights and measures, monetary standards, 
protection of patents and copyrights, improvement in 
the condition of the working classes, advancement of 
social reform, woman suffrage, and the establish¬ 
ment of universal peace. Two thousand such gather¬ 
ings took place in the half century immediately pre¬ 
ceding the World War. Some of them have resulted 
in the formation of permanent organizations, such as 
the Red Cross Society and the Postal Union. Fre¬ 
quent meetings of distinguished scholars and men of 
letters from the different countries also help to pro¬ 
duce what has been well called the “international 


Increased intercourse between civilized peoples 
not only broadens their outlook but also widens their 
sympathies. Feelings of human brotherhood, once 
, ted m prehistoric times to the members of one’s 
dan or tribe and during antiquity and the Middle 

kind Th, S T 7 St3te ’ CXpand t0 include a” man- 
, . ' cre deve l°ps an “international conscience ” 
which emphasizes the obligations of the strong 
toward the cveak and protests against the opprS 
o any members of the world^community "by Z 

o ieis. Let us consider some of its manifestations 
during the past century. ‘^i restations 



120 




















































































































Social Betterment 

Social Betterment 


633 


Little more than one hundred years ago the slave 
trade was generally regarded as a legitimate business. 
Hardly any one thought it wrong to kidnap or pur¬ 
chase African negroes, pack them on shipboard, 
where many died in the stifling holds, and carry 
them to the West Indies or the American mainland 
to be sold as slaves. It is estimated that by the close 
of the eighteenth century more than three million 
negroes were brought to the New World and that 
at least a quarter of a million more perished on the 
way thither. Denmark first abolished this shameful 
traffic. Great Britain and the United States took the 
same step in 1807-1808, and in subsequent years the 
Continental nations, one after another, agreed that it 
should no longer enjoy the protection of their flags. 
Since the last decade of the nineteenth century the 
European powers have also taken concerted measures 
to stamp out what remains of the slave trade in the 
interior of the Dark Continent. 

Slavery was all but extinct in Christian lands by the 
close of the Middle Ages. It revived, on a much 
larger scale, after the era of geographical discovery, 
which opened up Africa as a source of slaves and 
America as a field for their profitable employment. 
The French revolutionists abolished slavery in the 
colonies of France, but Napoleon restored it. Great 
Britain in 1833 passed an act to free the slaves in 
the British West Indies, paying one hundred million 
dollars to their former masters as compensation. 
This abolition of slavery, as well as of the slave trade, 
is a monument to the humanitarian labors of William 
Wilberforce, who for nearly half a century devoted 


6 34 


Modern Civilization 


his wealth, his energies, and his powerful oratory to 
the cause of the oppressed negroes. Within the next 
thirty years slavery peacefully disappeared in the col¬ 
onial possessions of France, Portugal, and Holland, 
but in the United States only at the cost of civil war. 

Biazil, in 1888, was the last Christian state to put an 
end to slavery. 

The penal code of eighteenth-century Europe must 
be described as barbarous. Torture of an accused 
person, in order to obtain a confession, usually pre¬ 
ceded his trial. Only a few nations, Great Britain 
among them, forbade its use. Prisons were private 
property, and the inmates, whether innocent or 
guilty, had to pay their keeper for food and other 
necessaries. Men, women, and children were herded 
together, the hardened criminals with the first 
offenders. Branding, flogging, and exposure in the 
pillory formed common punishments. Death was the 
punishment for murder, arson, burglary, horse¬ 


stealing, theft, forgery, counterfeiting ; 
other crimes. The British code included 


ng, and many 
uded over two 


undred capital offenses. A man (or woman) might 
be hanged for stealing as little as five shillings from 
a shop or for picking a pocket to the value of a single 
sii ing. Transportation to America or to Anctrai;.. 



Social Betterment 


635 

France was hastened by the Revolution. Great Brit¬ 
ain from about 1815 began to reduce the number of 
capital offenses, until only high treason, piracy, and 
murder remained. One consequence of the reform 
was a striking diminution of crime, though judges 
and other conservative persons had predicted just 
the reverse. Capital punishment has now been abol¬ 
ished by several European countries, including Italy, 
Portugal, Holland, Norway, and Rumania. A few 
American states do not inflict the death penalty. 

Prison reform accompanied the reform of the 
criminal code. One of the leaders of this humanita¬ 
rian movement was a Quakeress, Mrs. Elizabeth Fry. 
Much has been done within the past century to 
improve sanitary conditions in prisons, to abolish the 
lock-step, striped clothing, and other humiliating 
practices in the treatment of prisoners, and, by means 
of juvenile courts and reformatories, to separate first 
offenders from hardened criminals. Even as regards 
the latter, the idea is now to make confinement less a 
punishment than a means of developing the convict’s 
self-respect and manhood, so that he may return to 
free life a useful member of society. Prison reform 
has been much advanced by international congresses. 

The modern attitude toward the feeble-minded and 
the insane contrasts sharply with earlier ideas con¬ 
cerning them. Mentally defective persons are no 
longer regarded with amusement or contempt, but 
are rather considered as pitiful victims of heredity 
or of circumstances for which they were not respon¬ 
sible. Every civilized country now provides asylums 
for their proper care under medical supervision. 
There are also special schools for the benefit of the 
blind and of the deaf and dumb. 


636 


Modern Civilization 


An increasing sympathy with the brute creation 
also characterizes our age. The British Society for 
the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals was founded in 
1824. Ten years later Parliament did away with 
bull baiting and cock fighting, which had long been 
favorite amusements of the lower classes, and pro¬ 
hibited cruel treatment of all domestic animals. 
Similar legislation has been enacted on the Conti¬ 
nent, as well as in the United States. 

The crusade against alcoholism further illustrates 
humanitarian progress. The use of intoxicants, for- 
meily uncondemned, more and more comes under 
moral repiobation, as it is realized that they form 
one of the most potent agencies of man’s degenera¬ 
tion. The World War led Russia to abolish the 
government monopoly of vodka and other countries 
to restrict the consumption of alcoholic liquors. 
Norway and Belgium have adopted partial prohibi¬ 
tion (excluding beer and light wines), while Finland 
has declared for unlimited prohibition. Abolition 
of the liquor traffic in the United States was long 
agitated by private organizations, such as the 
Women’s Christian Temperance Union (under the 
presidency of Miss Frances E. Willard) and more 
recently by the Anti-Saloon League. Maine early 
a opted legal prohibition. Many states in the Mid¬ 
dle West and the South subsequently took the same 
action. Prohibition sentiment became at length so 
strong that a constitutional amendment, forbidding 
tie manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicat¬ 
ing lquors throughout the country, and their impor¬ 
tation into it, was ratified in 1918-1919 by more than 
three-fourths of the state legislatures. This Eight¬ 
eenth Amendment went into effect one year after the 


Emancipation of Women and Children 637 

Efforts to relieve poverty and suffering have given 
rise to charity organization societies, associations for 
improving the condition of the poor, dispensaries, 
anti-tuberculosis leagues, fresh-air funds, and numer¬ 
ous other philanthropic agencies in both Europe and 
America. The Salvation Army was started in Great 
Britain by William Booth, a Methodist minister, 
with the idea of bettering both the physical and spir¬ 
itual condition of those who are not reached by other 
religious bodies. The Young Men’s Christian Asso¬ 
ciation also arose in Great Britain. The Interna¬ 
tional Red Cross Society, with headquarters at Gen¬ 
eva, has now become a world-wide institution for the 
relief of all suffering, whether caused by war or by 
pestilence, floods, fire, and other calamities. It is the 
greatest single agency at work for the amelioration 
of mankind. 

Emancipation of Women and Children 

Woman’s position in Europe a century ago was 
what it had been in the Middle Ages—a position of 
dependence on man. She received little or no educa¬ 
tion, seldom engaged in anything but housework, and 
for support relied on husband, father, or brother. 
After marriage she became subject to her husband. 
In Great Britain she could neither make a will nor 
enter into a contract without his consent. All her 
possessions belonged to him. Any money that she 
earned or inherited was his and might be taken to 
pay his debts. The law even deprived her of control 
over her own children. Similar disabilities rested 
upon Continental women. 

The humanitarian sentiment evoked by the French 
Revolution began by freeing slave and serf, but pres- 



638 


Modern Civilization 


ently demanded the emancipation of woman also. 
1 he demand received a powerful impetus from the 
Industrial Revolution, which opened new employ¬ 
ments to woman outside the home and thus lessened 
her economic dependence on man. The agitation for 
woman’s rights has so far succeeded that most civil¬ 
ized countries now permit her to own property, 
engage in business, and enter the professions on her 
own account. Her educational opportunities have 
also steadily widened, until to-day both elementary 
and higher education are open to women in most 
European countries. 


Woman suffrage scored its first victories in Scan¬ 
dinavia. During the decade before the World War 
both Finland and Norway permitted women to vote' 
at general elections. Denmark and Sweden extended 
voting privileges to women shortly after the outbreak 
of the war. The women of Holland have now 
receited full suffrage, and those of Belgium, partial 
suffrage. Republican Germany, Austria, Czecho¬ 
slovakia, and Poland give women the vote. The 
Equal Franchise Act, passed by the British Parlia- 
ment in 1918, practically doubles the electorate of 

the United Kingdom. Australia and New Zealand 
also have woman suffrage. 

As far back as 1869, when the Fifteenth Amend¬ 
ment to the Constitution, granting suffrage to negroes, 
was before Congress, Miss Susan B. Anthony and her 
associates appealed to the legislators for the recogni¬ 
tion of women as well. The appeal was denied. 

e women then organized the National Woman 
Suffrage Association and began a campaign of edu¬ 
cation to convince thinking people of the justice of 

1611 Cause ‘ ^ ears P assed without much apparent 


Emancipation of Women and Children 639 

progress being made. Wyoming, when admitted to 
statehood, gave the ballot to women, and by 1918 
fourteen other states had done the same. Finally, the 
constitutional amendment for woman suffrage 
(sometimes called the “Susan B. Anthony Amend¬ 
ment”), which had been constantly before Congress 
for forty years, received the approval of that body 
and was speedily ratified by three-fourths of the 
states in 1920. With its ratification the United States 
has established complete political democracy. 

The divorce laws of the Christian world exhibit 
a bewildering variety. Roman Catholic countries, 
including Italy and Spain (and Portugal until the 
recent revolution there), preserve the medieval con¬ 
ception of marriage as a sacrament and therefore 
do not allow divorce under any circumstances. The 
same is true of most Latin American states. Coun¬ 
tries adhering to the Greek Church allow divorce. 
Those governed or influenced by the Code Napoleon, 
in particular, France, Belgium, Holland, Switzer¬ 
land, and Germany, do the same. Divorce is rare in 
Great Britain, as well as in Canada. The laws of the 
United States present no uniformity, some states per¬ 
mitting divorce on much easier terms than others. 
This country now grants more divorces than all the 
rest of Christendom. In general, modern legislation 
tends to treat marriage as a civil contract and to per¬ 
mit its dissolution for immorality, cruelty, desertion, 
habitual drunkenness, and serious crime, that is, for 
such behavior of one party to the contract as makes 
married life impossible or unbearable to the other 
party. 

The decline of the husband’s power over his wife 
has been accompanied by a decline of the father’s 


640 


Modern Civilization 


authority over his children. Among early peoples, 
the ancient Romans for example, the father’s control 
of his offspring was absolute, and their liberty was 
often sacrificed to his despotic rule. The Roman 
idea of family obligations survived in Europe 
through the Middle Ages and still lingers in Latin 
countries at the present time. In Anglo-Saxon coun¬ 
tries, on the other hand, both law and custom regard 
the grown-up child as independent of the father. 
Even his authority over minors is considered mainly 
in the light of guardianship. This liberal conception 
of paternal rights bids fair to prevail among all 
civilized peoples. 


Popular Education and the Higher Learning 

The schools of the Middle Ages were neither pub¬ 
lic nor free nor secular. All were private schools 
where pupils paid fees for their tuition, and almost 
all were founded and conducted by the clergy. The 
beginnings of popular education reach back to the 
Reformation era, when elementary schools, sup¬ 
ported by general taxation, began to spring up in 
Germany, Holland, Scotland, and Puritan New Eng¬ 
land. This free common school system, which it is the 
glory of the reformers to have established, gradually 
spread throughout the United States during the nine¬ 
teenth century and became entirely secular in char¬ 
acter. Secondary education was also democratized 
by the founding of free high schools for both boys 
and girls. f he advance of democratic ideas in 

urope has produced a similar movement there in 
favor of popular education. 

British statesmen for a long time looked with dis¬ 
favor upon projects for public schools. Education, 


Popular Education and Higher Learning 641 

they thought, unfits the people for manual labor and 
nourishes revolutionary ideas. “If a horse knew as 
much as a man, I should not like to be its rider,” 
declared a peer in Parliament, when voting against 
an appropriation for educational purposes. After 
the passage of the Second Reform Act, which enfran¬ 
chised the working classes, the government set up for 
the first time a national system of instruction. Ele¬ 
mentary education in Great Britain is now free, com¬ 
pulsory, and secular. Many parents, however, prefer 
to send their children to private institutions under 
the control of the Anglican Church. The public 
and private schools together have well-nigh abol¬ 
ished illiteracy. 

The French revolutionists believed with Danton 
that “next to bread, education is the first need of the 
people. They prepared an elaborate scheme for 
public schools, but never carried it into effect. Na¬ 
poleon also aimed to set up a State system of education 
through primary and grammar grades to the lycees, 
or high schools. Lack of funds and of experienced 
lay teachers handicapped the emperor’s efforts, and 
at the close of the Napoleonic era the majority of 
French children still attended private schools con¬ 
ducted by the Church. France waited until the 
’eighties of the last century before securing a truly 
national system of education. In recent decades the 
government has appropriated large sums for educa¬ 
tional purposes, and illiteracy is to-day practically 
non-existent. 

Prussia began to reorganize elementary education 
along modern lines as early as the reign of Frederick 
the Great and carried the work further after her 
crushing defeat by Napoleon. The public school 


642 


Modern Civilization 


movement has made much progress in other Conti¬ 
nental countries during recent years. The percentage 
of illiteracy is still high in Italy and higher still in 
Spain, Portugal, and the Balkan states, while in 
Russia most of the peasants are too ignorant to sign 
their names. With such exceptions, however, Eu¬ 
rope now agrees with the United States that at least 
the rudiments of an education should be the birth¬ 
right of every child, that common schools are the 
pillars of democracy. 

The United States has done much more than 
Europe in popularizing the higher learning. The 
American state university, with its wide curriculum 
of both liberal and practical subjects, is another nine¬ 
teenth-century innovation. Previous to its establish¬ 
ment private denominational institutions prepared 
men for the ministry and a few other learned pro¬ 
fessions. State universities, admitting both men and 
women, are now found in all the American common¬ 
wealths south and west of Pennsylvania. Their work 
is supplemented not only by private colleges and uni¬ 
versities, but also by the splendid benefactions asso¬ 
ciated with the names of Rockefeller and Carnegie. 

A university education in Europe is still commonly 
restricted to people of means. There is a growing 
tendency, however, to make the higher learning more 
accessible to poor but ambitious students. 

Religious Development 

Few of us realize how gradually the principle of 
religious toleration has won acceptance in modern 
t.mes. At first only certain Protestant sects, such as 
the Lutherans in Germany after the Peace of Augs¬ 
burg and the Huguenots in France after the Edict 





643 



























































































































































































































































































644 


Modern Civilization 


of Nantes, enjoyed liberty of conscience and worship. 
Next, the same privileges were granted to all Prot¬ 
estant sects, as in Holland, in England by the Toler¬ 
ation Act, and in the American colonies. Finally, 
toleration was extended to every one, whether Prot¬ 
estant or Roman Catholic, Christian or non- 
Christian. The First Amendment to the Constitu¬ 
tion of the United States provides that Congress shall 
make no law prohibiting the “free exercise of reli¬ 
gion.” The French revolutionists in the Declaration 
of the Rights of Man also announced that no one 
should be disturbed on account of his religious 
opinions, provided he did not thereby trouble public 
order. Prussia secured religious toleration under 
Frederick the Great. It was secured in the rest of 
Germany and in Austria-Hungary and Italy only 
during the latter part of the nineteenth century. 
While Roman Catholicism is the prevailing faith in 
all the Latin American republics, freedom of wor¬ 
ship is commonly permitted by them. It may be said 
broadly, that throughout the Christian world the va¬ 
rious churches have now abandoned the practice of 
compulsion in religion. 

The Church in the Middle Ages controlled, or 
tried to control, the State, upon the theory that tem¬ 
poral as well as spiritual authority is derived from 
the pope. The Reformation, in those countries 
where it succeeded, merely substituted a number of 

■rIT T U R )nal C U CheS for the one Church of 
To ^°S er W llliams and William Penn in 
he seventeenth century belongs the honor of having 
established in Rhode Island and Pennsylvania res 
pectively, the first political communities where’reli-. 
gious matters were taken entirely out of the hands of 


Religious Development 645 

the civil government. The ideas of Williams and 
Penn found expression in the First Amendment to 
the Constitution of the United States. Congress is 
forbidden to make any law “respecting an establish¬ 
ment of religion.” This means that the federal gov- 
ernment cannot appropriate money for the support of 
any church. No such restriction binds the several 
states, but most of their constitutions repeat the fed¬ 
eral prohibition. Church and State are absolutely 
separate in Canada, as well as in Mexico, Brazil, and 
some of the smaller Latin American countries. 

The separation of Church and State prevails in 
Australia, South Africa, and other parts of the Brit¬ 
ish Empire. The Liberal Party under Gladstone dis¬ 
established the Anglican Church in Ireland and 
under Lloyd George disestablished it in Wales. 
The French revolutionists separated Church and 
State, but Napoleon’s Concordat with the pope again 
made Roman Catholicism the official religion. The 
Concordat was abrogated as recently as 1905, and 
both Catholic and Protestant bodies in France now 
depend entirely upon voluntary contributions for 
support. The Portuguese revolutionists, when found¬ 
ing a republic in 1910, disestablished the Roman 
Church, and the Russian revolutionists in 1917 dis¬ 
established the Greek (Orthodox) Church. The 
new constitution of republican Germany practically 
disestablishes the Prussian Protestant Church, 
whose head was the kaiser. Before the German 
Revolution the Protestant Church in Prussia was a 
leading prop of divine-right monarchy; altar and 
throne justified and blessed each other. The con¬ 
stitutions of Czecho-Slovakia and Poland also pro¬ 
vide for the separation of Church and State. 


646 


Modern Civilization 


The liberal movement in religion has carried fur¬ 
ther that multiplication of sects which began with 
the Reformation. Baptists, Quakers, and Metho¬ 
dists arose in Great Britain during the seventeenth and 
eighteenth centuries. Other sects, including the 
Adventists, Universalists, and Disciples of Christ, 
and even new religions, such as Mormonism, Spirit¬ 
ualism, and Christian Science, have originated in 
the United States. 

Both Freemasonry and Oddfellowship took their 
present form in Great Britain about two centuries 
ago. They now have thousands of lodges and several 
millions of members throughout the world. Their 
insistence upon religious toleration makes it possible 
for them to admit votaries of even non-Christian 
faiths, as in India. 

Considerably over a third of the earth’s peoples are 
Christians. The adherents of Roman Catholicism 
number perhaps 275,000,000; those of the Protestant 
denominations, perhaps 175,000,000; and those of the 
Greek Church, perhaps 125,000,000. The Jews are 
estimated at 15,000,000. For the other world reli¬ 
gions the following figures must be considered merely 
rough approximations: Moslems, 225,000,000; 
Brahmanists (in India), 225,000,000; Buddhists 
(China, Japan, Tibet, Mongolia, Indo-China), 
450,000,000. In this estimate the entire populations 
of China and Japan are counted as Buddhists, owing 
to the difficulty of separating Buddhism in those 
countries from the national faiths. 

. The inversion of the non-Christian world, includ¬ 
ing perhaps 150,000,000 heathen in Africa, Asia, 
Oceania, and America, is the stupendous task to 
which Christian peoples have addressed themselves 


Religious Development 647 

since the Middle Ages. The work of Roman Cath¬ 
olic missionaries in christianizing most of the Filipi¬ 
nos and the Indians of Latin America and Canada 
was largely accomplished in the sixteenth and seven¬ 
teenth centuries. Several Protestant denominations 
founded missionary societies in the eighteenth cen¬ 
tury, and by the middle of the nineteenth century 
almost every branch of Protestantism, both in Europe 
and America, had representatives throughout the 
non-Christian world. The number of Christians 
attached to missions is reckoned at 10,000,000, about 
equally divided between Catholic and Protestant 
converts. 

But the results of Christian missions cannot be 
expressed statistically. Missionaries have been well 
called the advance-guard of modern civilization. 
They establish schools and colleges, build hospitals, 
introduce scientific medicine and sanitation, familiar¬ 
ize the natives with inventions and discoveries, and 
often succeed in stamping out such debasing prac¬ 
tices as cannibalism and human sacrifice. Native 
converts become, in turn, the means of extending the 
benefits of modern civilization among their country¬ 
men. The effect of missionary enterprise is therefore 
enormous, even when conversions are relatively few. 
We may safely include Christian missions among the 
most important of all agencies for bringing backward 
peoples into the common brotherhood of mankind. 

Science 

A hundred years ago, science enjoyed only a lim¬ 
ited recognition in universities and none at all in 
secondary and elementary schools. The marvelous 
achievements of scientific men fixed public attention 


6 4 8 


Modern Civilization 


on their work, and courses in science began to dis¬ 
place the older “classical” studies. At the same time 
science has become an international force which 
recognizes no national boundaries, no distinctions of 
race or religion. Scientists in every land follow one 
another’s researches; they carry on their labors in 
common. 


Many pages would be needed merely to enumerate 
the scientific discoveries of our age. The astronomer 
found a new planet, Neptune; measured the dis¬ 
tances of the fixed stars; and began the enormous task 


of photographing the heavens and cataloguing many 
of the two or three thousand billion suns which form 
our universe. The physicist determined the velocity 
of light and showed that light, radiant heat, electri¬ 
city, and magnetism are due to waves or undulations 
of the ether; are, in fact, interconvertible forms of 
cosmic energy. The chemist proved that matter 
exists in a solid, liquid, or gaseous state according to 
the degree of heat to which it is subjected; that it is 
composed of one or more of eighty-odd elements; and 
that these elements combine with one another in fixed 
proportions by weight, as when one pound of hydro¬ 
gen unites with eight pounds of oxygen to form nine 
pounds of water. The biologist discovered that all 
plants and animals, from the lowest to the hio-hest, 
are made up of cells containing the transparent jelly 
or protoplasm which is the basis of life. 

New conceptions of the earth were set forth by 
Sir Charles Lyell in his Principles of Geology (1830- 
1S33). He explained the changes which have pro¬ 
duced mountains, valleys, plains, lakes, sea-coasts 
and other natural features, not as the result of con¬ 
vulsions or catastrophes, as had been previously sup- 


Science 


649 


posed, but as due to erosion by water, the action of 
frost and snow, and other forces working gradually 
over immense periods of time. The acceptance of 
Lyell’s uniformitarian theory, coupled with the dis¬ 
covery of fossils in the rocks, made it necessary to 
reckon the age of the earth by untold millions, instead 
of a few thousands, of years. The further discovery 
in western Europe of rude stone implements and 
human bones associated with the remains of extinct 
animals, such as the mammoth, woolly rhinoceros, 
and cave bear, indicated the existence of man himself 
at a remote period. 

Even before Charles Darwin published the Origin 
of Species (1859), naturalists argued that existing 
plants and animals, instead of being separately cre¬ 
ated, had evolved from a few ancestral types. Dar¬ 
win was first to show how evolution might have 
occurred by means of “natural selection.” He 
pointed out that many more individuals of each spe¬ 
cies are born than can possibly live to rear their off¬ 
spring; that, in consequence, there is a constant 
“struggle for existence” between them; and that the 
fittest who survive are the strongest, the swiftest, the 
most cunning, the most adaptable—in other words, 
those who possess characteristics that give them a 
superiority over their competitors. Such character¬ 
istics, transmitted by heredity, tend to become more 
and more marked in succeeding generations, until at 
length entirely new species arise. Investigators since 
Darwin have made important additions to the evolu¬ 
tionary theory, especially the Dutch naturalist Hugo 
de Vries, who assumes that new species are produced 
from existing forms by sudden leaps, instead of by 
the slow accumulation of slight, successive variations. 


650 


Modern Civilization 


Evolution is now a scientific commonplace, like grav¬ 
itation, but we have still much to learn about the 
origin and development of life on the earth. 

The practical applications of science are innumer¬ 
able. Applied physics gave us the telegraph, tele¬ 
phone, electric lighting, and electric motive force. 
More recently, wireless telegraphy and telephony 
have developed from the discovery of the “Hertzian 
waves,” or electro-magnetic vibrations in the ether. 
In 1895 the German Rontgen discovered the X-rays, 
and three years later the French professor Curie, 
assisted by his Polish wife, obtained from the mineral 
called pitchblende the mysterious radium. It is a 
more intense producer of the X-rays than any other 
substance, yet wastes away with incredible slowness. 
Physicists have now found many other radioactive 
bodies and have proved that radioactivity is due to 
the breaking-up of atoms, which are not the indivis¬ 
ible entities they were once supposed to be. This 
revelation of vast atomic energy leads to the belief 
that, long before our supplies of coal and oil are 
exhausted, a source of unlimited power may be found 
in the disintegration of the atom. Applied chem¬ 
istry gave us illuminating gas, friction matches, such 
powerful explosives as dynamite and nitroglycerine, 
which aie pioduced from animal or vegetable fats, 
artificial fertilizers, beet sugar, aluminum, and vari¬ 
ous derivatives of coal tar, including the aniline 
dyes, carbolic acid, naphtha, and saccharine. The 
c hemist now creates in his laboratory many organic 
substances which had previously been produced only 
by plants or in the bodies of animals. 

The practical applications of biology are seen in 
the germ theory of disease. The researches of the 


CHARLES DARWIN LOUIS PASTEUR 








IMMANUEL KANT HERBERT SPENCER 











Science 


651 

Frenchman, Louis Pasteur, upon vegetable micro¬ 
organisms (bacteria) proved that the harmful kinds 
are responsible for definite diseases in both plants and 
animals. Dr. Robert Koch of Berlin soon isolated 
the germs which produce tuberculosis and cholera, 
and during recent years those producing diphtheria’ 
typhoid fever, influenza, pneumonia, lockjaw, bu¬ 
bonic plague, and other dread scourges have been 
identified. In some cases remedies called antitoxins 
are now administered to counteract the bacterial 
toxins or poisons. Another step in medicine is the 
discovery that certain diseases are spread in some one 
particular way. The bite of one species of mosquito 
causes malaria and that of another yellow fever; lice 
transmit typhus; the tsetse-fly carries the sleeping 
sickness; and fleas on rats convey the bubonic plague 
to man. All this new knowledge enables us to look 
forward with confidence to a time when contagious 
and infectious diseases will be eliminated from civil¬ 
ized countries. Meanwhile, surgery has been revolu¬ 
tionized by the use of anaesthetics and the introduc¬ 
tion of antisepsis and asepsis. 

The wonderful progress of modern science has 
been largely due to the improvement of apparatus. 
The giant telescope enables the astronomer to meas¬ 
ure the movements of stars so incredibly remote that 
their light rays, which we now see, started earthwards 
before the dawn of the Christian era. The spectro¬ 
scope analyzes the constituents of the most distant 
heavenly bodies and proves that they are composed of 
the same kinds of matter as our planet. The com¬ 
pound microscope reveals the existence of a hitherto 
unsuspected realm of minute life in earth and air and 
water. The scientific possibilities of the photo- 


652 


Modern Civilization 


graphic camera, especially in the form of moving 
pictures, have only recently been revealed. Science 
now depends on the use of precise instruments of 
research as much as industry depends on machinery. 

Philosophy and Literature 

Since the beginning of modern times man has 
become more and more interested in himself; he has 
resolved to learn what he is, whence he came, and 
what he shall be. These are the old questions of 
philosophy. Perhaps no other great thinker has 
more influenced his age than Immanuel Kant (1724- 
1804) . During a long and quiet life of lecturing and 
writing at the Prussian university of Konigsberg, 
Kant produced epoch-making works in almost every 
field of philosophy, as well as in theology and natural 
science. He found the real basis of faith in God, 
free-will, and immortality in man’s moral nature. A 
later and also very influential philosopher was Her¬ 
bert Spencer (1820-1903). The close friend of Dar¬ 
win, Spencer sought to build up a philosophic sys¬ 
tem upon evolutionary principles. The ten volumes 
of his Synthetic Philosophy form an ambitious 
attempt to explain the development of the universe 
as a whole, from the atom to the star, from the one- 
celled organism to man. Spencer was a pioneer in 
the study of psychology, that branch of philosophy 

dealing with the mental processes of both man and 
the lower animals. 

ground in the study of 
sociology. He carried over the principle of evolu¬ 
tion into human society, with the purpose of showing 
how languages, laws, religions, customs, and all other 
institutions naturally arise and develop among man- 


Philosophy and Literature 653 

kind. Sociology,” as the name for this new subject, 
had been previously introduced by the French philos¬ 
opher, Auguste Comte. 

The study of history has been transformed under 
the influence of the sociologists. It is no longer 
merely a narrative in chronological order of political 
and military events, but rather an account of the 
entire culture of a people. Some historical students 
do not limit inquiry to civilized man, but also inves¬ 
tigate the culture of savage and barbarous peoples, 
as found to-day, or once found in remote ages. His¬ 
tory, so considered, is closely related to anthropology, 
one of the most fascinating of the newer branches of 
learning. 

Public schools, public libraries, and cheap books, 
magazines, and newspapers have multiplied readers. 
Literature, in consequence, is now a profession, and 
the successful novelist or poet may secure a world¬ 
wide audience. Sir Walter Scott did much to give 
the novel popularity through his historical tales. 
Dickens, Thackeray, and other English writers made 
it a presentation of contemporary life. On the Con¬ 
tinent almost all the celebrated authors of the past 
century have been novelists. It is sufficient to men¬ 
tion three only, whose fame has gone out into many 
lands: the Frenchman Victor Hugo; the Russian 
Tolstoy; and the Pole Sienkiewicz. 

The drama rivals the novel in popularity among 
all classes. It presents either a picture of bygone 
ages or scenes from everyday life. In no country 
does it assume more importance than in France, 
where the theater is considered a branch of public 
instruction. Much dramatic poetry, however, is 
written to be read, rather than for acting on the stage, 


Modern Civilization 


654 

for instance, the I J aust of Goethe. Lyric poetry has 
been produced in all countries, notably in Great 
Britain, France, Germany, Italy, and the United 
States, and has become the favorite style of poetic 
expression. 

Music and the Fine Arts 

Music now takes almost as large a place as litera¬ 
ture in modern life. Even more than literature, it 
tanks as an international force, for the musician, 
whatever his nationality, uses a language which needs 
no translation to be intelligible. 

During medieval times music was chiefly used in 
the services of the Church. The Renaissance began 
to secularize music, so that it might express all 
human joy, sadness, passion, and aspiration. The 
seculai art thus includes operas, chamber music (for 
rendition in a small apartment instead of in a theater 
or concert hall), compositions for soloists, and 
orchestral symphonies. 

The Middle Ages knew the pipe-organ, harp, flute, 
drum, trumpet, and many other instruments. These 
were often played together, but with no other purpose 
than to increase the volume of sound. There was not 
the slightest idea of orchestration. After the Renais¬ 
sance new instruments began to appear, including the 
violin, viols of all sizes, the slide trombone, and the 
clarinet. Percussion action, applied to the old- 
fashioned spinet and harpsichord, produced in the 
eighteenth century the pianoforte. The symphony 
a tone poem combining all musical sounds into a 
harmonious whole, now began to assume its present 
form. The great symphonists—Haydn, Mozart, that 
supreme genius Beethoven, and their successors in the 


Music and the Fine Arts 655 

nineteenth century—thus created a new art to enrich 
the higher life of mankind. 

Anothu master of music, Richard Wagner, cre¬ 
ated the musical drama, which unites music, poetry, 
and acting. Wagner believed that the singer should 
also be an actor and should adapt both song and ges¬ 
ture to the orchestra. He also gave much attention 
to the scenery and stage-setting, in order to heighten 
the dramatic effect. Wagner’s most famous work, 
The Ring of the Nibelung , consists of four complete 
dramas based on old Teutonic legend. 

A new source of music has been opened up in the 
melodies of the European peasantry—their folk 
songs. Almost every country in Europe is rich in 
these musical wild flowers, and they are now being 
gathered by trained collectors. Lullabies, marriage 
ditties, funeral dirges, and ballads are some of the 
varieties of folk songs. 

Like music, sculpture illustrates the international¬ 
ism of art. The three greatest sculptors of the nine¬ 
teenth century were Canova, an Italian, Thorwald- 
sen, a Dane, and Rodin, a Frenchman. The first two 
found inspiration mainly in classic statuary, which 
seeks ideal beauty of form; the third expressed in 
marble the utmost realism and naturalism. Much 
fine work has also been done in bronze, for instance, 
the Chicago statue of Abraham Lincoln by St. Gau- 
dens, who is rightly considered the most eminent 
sculptor produced by America. 

No century has witnessed more activity in the con¬ 
struction of churches, town halls, court houses, thea¬ 
ters, schools, and other public edifices than the nine¬ 
teenth, but these have usually been reproductions of 
earlier buildings. Architects either went to Greece 



656 


Modern Civilization 


and Rome for models or imitated the Romanesque 
and Gothic styles. The extensive use of structural 
steel has now begun to produce an entirely new archi¬ 
tectural style, more appropriate to modern needs, in 
the “skyscraper” of American cities. It is sometimes 
criticized as being “not architecture, but engineering 
with a stone veneer.” The criticism seems hardly 
just in all cases. Such a structure as the Woolworth 
Building in New York has a beauty of its own and 
truly expresses the spirit of our industrial age. 

Modern painters, no longer restricted to religious 
pictures, often choose their subjects from history or 
contemporary life. They excel in portraiture, and 
their landscape paintings unquestionably surpass the 
best which even the “old masters” of the Renaissance 
could produce. Painting flourishes especially in 
France, where the leading artists receive their train¬ 
ing and exhibit their pictures at an annual exposition, 
the Salon at Paris. 


CHAPTER XIX 

INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS, 1871-1914 

The Triple Alliance 

MODERN civilization, which on the one side creates 
an international current drawing the world’s peoples 
together in art, literature, science, and industry, on 
the other side creates a national current tending to 
keep them apart. Internationalism or cosmopolitan¬ 
ism lays stress on our common humanity, on the 
brotherhood of man. Nationalism or patriotism 
emphasizes love of country and devotion to the 
“fatherland.” National rivalries and antipathies 
were never stronger than in the nineteenth century, 
and in the twentieth century they brought forth the 
calamitous World War. 

The national movement in Europe, we have 
learned, arose during the revolutionary and Napo¬ 
leonic era, helped to produce the popular revolts 
between 1815 and. 1830, and assumed special impor¬ 
tance between 1848 and 1871, when both Italy and 
Germany won by the sword their long-desired unifi¬ 
cation. The creation of a united Italy, and especially 
of a united Germany, quite upset the delicate equi¬ 
librium of European politics as established at the 
Congress of Vienna. The old balance of power dis¬ 
appeared, for the German Empire, from the hour of 
its birth, took the first place on the Continent. 

Bismarck’s former policy of “blood and iron” had 
resulted in the wars with Denmark, Austria, and 

657 


6 5 8 


International Relations 


France. Now that Germany was “satiated,” as he 
declared, he became a man of peace. His policy, 
henceforth, hinged upon France. The catastrophe 
of the Franco-German War seemed to remove that 
country from the ranks of the great powers, but she 
recovered rapidly under a republican government 
and soon paid off the indemnity imposed upon her by 
the Treaty of 1 rankfort. But France was not recon¬ 
ciled to the loss of Alsace and Lorraine. The annex¬ 
ation of these two provinces kept alive the spirit of 
revenge in France and made her Germany's persist¬ 
ent, implacable foe. The French in 1870-1871 had 
fought alone; should they secure the support of Aus¬ 
tria-Hungary, Italy, or Russia, the issue of a second 
Franco-German War might be quite unlike that of 
the first. Accordingly, Bismarck did all he could to 
keep France friendless among the nations. 

The “Iron Chancellor" turned first to Austria- 
Hungary. He had prepared the way for good rela¬ 
tions by his moderation in arranging terms of peace 
with Francis Joseph I at the close of the “Seven 
Weeks W ar. After 1871 the Hapsburgs began to 
seek compensation in the Balkans for territory which 
they had lost in Germany and Italy. Bismarck sup¬ 
ported their pretensions at the Congress of Berlin 
Here the “honest broker,” as he callfd himself, suc^ 
cessfully opposed the extension of Russian influence 
in the Balkan Peninsula and agreed to an Austrian 
occupation of the Turkish provinces of Bosnia and 
Herzegovina. In 1879 Germany and Austria- 
Hungary made a secret alliance binding themselves 
to aid each other if either should be attacked by Rus¬ 
sia or by another power which had the help of 
Russia. 


I 



®o 


Ol 

®0 












































Dual Alliance and Triple Entente 659 

Bismarck scored a further triumph in 1882, when 
he induced Italy to throw in her lot with Germany 
and Austria-Hungary, thus forming the Triple Alli¬ 
ance. Italy took this action, partly to secure good 
friends on the Continent, but chiefly because of 
resentment against Franee, which had just established 
a protectorate over Tunis, a region marked for Ital¬ 
ian colonization. Rumania also joined the group of 
Central Powers in 1883. The Triple Alliance con¬ 
tinued unbroken until Italy declared war against 
Austria-Hungary. Rumania likewise repudiated it, 
upon entering the World War. 

Bismarck also did his best to convince Russia of 
Germany’s good will. During the ’eighties the two 
countries actually bound themselves to benevolent 
neutrality in case one or the other should be assailed. 
This “reinsurance compact” was secretly signed in 
1884 and was renewed three years later. But Wil¬ 
liam II, who forced Bismarck’s retirement in 1890, 
did not continue the friendly understanding with 
Russia. The kaiser seems to have believed that the 
Triple Alliance sufficiently guaranteed the security 
of Germany and that the “reinsurance compact” 
would interfere with Germany’s obligations to 
Austria-Hungary, whose rivalry with Russia in the 
Balkans had now become more acute than ever. 

The Dual Alliance and the Triple Entente 

The creation of the Triple Alliance was a chal¬ 
lenge to France and Russia to form an opposing 
alliance. Bismarck’s diplomatic skill had postponed 
it as long as he remained chancellor, but even before 
1890 the two countries had begun to draw together. 
An alliance between them seemed very improbable, 


66o 


International Relations 


in view of the fact that they had fought each other 
bitterly in the Napoleonic and Crimean wars and of 
the further fact that one was a revolutionary repub¬ 
lic and the other a reactionary autocracy. Interna¬ 
tional politics sometimes makes strange bedfellows, 
however. Feelings of both revenge and fear stirred 
France: revenge for the humiliating defeats of 1870- 
1871 and the loss of Alsace-Lorraine; fear lest with 
the rapid increase of German wealth, population and 
military power she might be suddenly attacked and 
overwhelmed by her Teutonic neighbor. Under 
Bismarck, Germany had pursued a peaceful policy; 
what would be her policy under the kaiser no one 
could say. In any case, mighty Russia seemed a most 
desirable ally. Russia, on her part, now realized 
more keenly the conflict between her interests in the 
Balkans and the interests of Germany’s ally, Austria- 
Hungary; she held Germany responsible for her 
failure at the Congress of Berlin; and she, too, felt 
alarm at the growing preponderance of Germany in 
European aflaiis. The time was obviously ripe for 
a Franco-Russian understanding. 

Close relations between France and Russia began 
in the financial sphere, when the tsar’s government, 
in order to build the Trans-Siberian Railway and 
develop Russian industries, sold large blocks of 
securities to French investors. A secret treaty 
between the two countries was concluded in 1891 and 
was publicly announced four years later. The pre¬ 
cise terms of the treaty are unknown. Apparently, 
hiance and Russia agreed that in case either nation 
was attacked the other nation would come to its 
assistance, and that peace should be made in concert. 
The Dual Alliance, like the Triple Alliance, thus 


Dual Alliance and Triple Entente 661 


appears to have been a defensive undertaking on the 
part of the powers concerned. France no longer 
stood alone, and Germany on her eastern flank had 
a potential enemy. It was the “nightmare coalition” 
so feared by Bismarck. 

Ever since the Crimean War Great Britain had 
kept aloof from Continental entanglements. She was 
no friend either of France or Russia, for the colonial 
aspirations of these powers, the one in Africa and the 
other in Asia, clashed with her own. Lord Salis¬ 
bury, Disraeli’s successor as leader of the Conserva¬ 
tive Party during the last two decades of the nine¬ 
teenth century, continued the traditional Franco- 
phobe and Russophobe policies of Great Britain. 

Toward Germany and the other members of the 
Triple Alliance the British attitude was most ami¬ 
cable throughout the period of Bismarck’s chancellor¬ 
ship. To avoid giving offense to Great Britain Bis¬ 
marck scrupulously observed Belgian neutrality dur¬ 
ing the war of 1870-1871, and for the same reason he 
long opposed the acquisition of colonies by Germany. 
The supposed kinship of Germans and Anglo-Saxons 
and the close connections of the German and British 
courts (William II was a grandson of Queen Vic¬ 
toria) also made for good relations between the two 
countries. Nevertheless, as the ’nineties advanced, 
Great Britain and Germany began to draw apart. 
One reason was the amazing industrial development 
of Germany, which by this time had made her a seri¬ 
ous competitor of Great Britain in foreign markets. 
Another reason was the aggressive colonial policy of 
Germany and her apparent intention of founding a 
world empire rivaling that of Great Britain. But 
the most important reason was Germany’s declared 


662 


International Relations 


purpose to build up a great navy as well as a great 
army. To the average Britisher the new German 
navy seemed a dagger pointed at his country’s heart. 
The sympathetic attitude of the kaiser and his associ¬ 
ates toward the Boers, both before and during the 
South African War, further disturbed the serenity of 
Anglo-German relations. 

The early years of the twentieth century saw Great 
Britain emerge from her isolation, which some 
described as “splendid” but others as “dangerous,” 
and seek new friendships on the Continent. The first 
step was reconciliation with France. The two nations 
found it possible to adjust their conflicting claims in 
Africa and to arrive at a “cordial understanding” 

(entente cordiale ). This was not a formal alliance; 
it did not provide for military measures, either of 
defense or of offense; nor did it have special reference 
to Germany or any other Continental power. The 
significance of the entente cordiale lay in the fact that 
it healed the ancient feuds between the two nations 
and prepared the way for their closer cooperation. 
The entente cordiale was reached in 1904. 

Three years later Great Britain and Russia, who 
for half a century had jealously watched each other’s 
expansion in Asia, composed their differences The 
Anglo-Russian Convention settled the troublesome 
questions relating to Persia, Afghanistan, and Tibet 
in a manner satisfactory to both powers. The entente 
cordiale thus became transformed into a Triple 
Entente, for Russia was already an ally of France. 
Japan, a British ally since 1902, also reached an 
understanding with Russia in regard to their respec¬ 
tive spheres of influence in the Far East. 

The change in international relations which made 


Dual Alliance and Triple Entente 663 

Great Britain an actual ally of Japan and a potential 
ally of France and Russia, has been called a diplo¬ 
matic revolution. Its significance was not lost on 
Germany. While British statesmen believed that 
they were only preparing defensive measures against 
a possible German attack, most Germans pictured 
Great Britain as plotting their country’s ruin. The 
rift between the two nations steadily widened; by 
1914 it had become a chasm. 

Such, in outline, was the tangled skein of European 
diplomacy for over forty years following the Franco- 
German War. The Triple Alliance under Bis¬ 
marck’s guidance had dominated Europe without 
a competitor, before the creation of the Dual Alli¬ 
ance. Something like a balance of power then 
replaced the earlier primacy of Germany. The old 
coalition, however, continued to be far stronger than 
the new, until Great Britain aligned herself with 
France and Russia. Germany, resentful at what she 
described as the “encirclement policy” of her enemies, 
at the “iron ring” which she professed to see being 
forged around her, now bent every effort to break 
up the Triple Entente by diplomatic action and by 
militarv threats. At the same time she tried to create 

j 

a “Middle Europe” which, with its annexes in Asia, 
would effectually separate Great Britain and France 
from their Russian ally. These German projects 
raised new colonial problems and reopened the East¬ 
ern Question. 


Colonial Problems 

Something has been said in a previous chapter 
about the Greater Europe which arose during the 
nineteenth and twentieth centuries. European 


664 


International Relations 


expansion went on most rapidly after 1871, when one 
country after another endeavored to form an empire 
overseas. This new imperialism was especially fos¬ 
tered by the revival of national sentiment in Europe. 
Both Italy and Germany wished to obtain colonial 
dependencies where their people could settle and 
maintain the language, customs, and traditions of the 
home land. France sought compensation for her 
“Lost Provinces” by acquiring African possessions. 
Russia, Japan, and the United States annexed addi¬ 
tional territories. Great Britain, the leading colonial 
power in the world for more than a century, took 
renewed pride in her dominions and prepared to 
extend them as occasion offered. European peoples 
could not compete for markets, trading-posts, spheres 
of influence, protectorates, and colonies in every part 
of the world without becoming as bitter rivals abroad 
as they were at home. Imperialism, as well as nation¬ 
alism, thus sowed the seeds of future conflict between 
them. 

A late-comei in the family of nations, Germany 
found that the best regions for colonization in the 
temperate zone already belonged to other powers. 
The colonies which she acquired in Africa and 
Oceania did not attract settlers, provided no impor¬ 
tant markets, and imposed a heavy burden on the 
imperial treasury for maintenance, 'if Germany was 
to secure “a place in the sun,” it could only be at the 
expense of other countries and by reliance upon “the 
good German sword.” William II made prepara¬ 
tions for the partition of China, but the uprising of 
the Chinese under the “Boxers” led to the abandon¬ 
ment of this enterprise. He tried to get a foothold in 
" outh America by sending his warships to demand 


Colonial Problems 


665 


from Venezuela the payment of German debts, only 
to be pulled up sharply by President Roosevelt, who 
concentrated the American fleet in the West Indies 
and invoked the Monroe Doctrine. Not more suc¬ 
cessful was the kaiser’s policy in Morocco. 

Morocco at the beginning of the twentieth century 
was a Moslem state inhabited by half-civilized and 
very unruly tribes. The rich natural resources of the 
country and its proximity to Algeria made it an invit¬ 
ing field for French expansion. Germany also had 
some economic interests there. William II precipi¬ 
tated the first Moroccan crisis, at a time when Russia, 
the ally of France, was involved in war with Japan. 
He paid a visit to the native ruler, openly flouted the 
French claims, and asserted in vigorous language the 
independence of Morocco. France could not afford 
to accept the challenge thus flung in her face and 
agreed to submit the matters in dispute to an inter¬ 
national conference, which met at Algeciras, Spain, 
in 1906. The assembled powers prohibited the 
annexation of Morocco, but left France free to con¬ 
tinue her policy of “peaceful penetration.” The out¬ 
come of the conference thus proved disappointing to 
the kaiser. 

Germany soon found another occasion to test the 
strength of the Anglo-French entente. Owing to the 
anarchy in Morocco, a French army had occupied 
the capital (Fez). The kaiser at once dispatched a 
warship to Agadir on the Moroccan coast, as a notice 
to France to withdraw her troops. Feeling mounted 
high in both countries, and Europe for the moment 
seemed to be on the verge of the long-dreaded war. 
Great Britain, however, made common cause with 
France, for Agadir in German hands and converted 


666 


International Relations 


into a naval base would have formed a palpable 
threat to British trade routes in the Atlantic. Ger¬ 
many now decided to yield. She agreed to the estab¬ 
lishment of a French protectorate over Morocco, 
accepting as compensation some territory in the 
French Congo. This “Agadir incident” further 
embittered international relations. The French 
regarded their Congo cession as so much blackmail 
levied by Germany; the Germans looked upon Great 
Britain’s support of France as an unwarranted inter¬ 
ference which had inflicted upon them a diplomatic 
defeat. 

The Eastern Question 

Bismarck had treated the whole Eastern Question 
with contempt, declaring it “not worth the bones of 
a single Pomeranian grenadier.” Under William II, 
however, Germany managed to supplant Great 
Biitain as the protector of the Ottoman Empire 
against Russia. The kaiser twice visited the sultan, 
a bloodthirsty despot whose massacres of Bulgarians 
and Armenians had aroused the horror of Christian 
Euiope, and ostentatiously proclaimed himself the 
champion of all Moslems, the ally of Allah. 

Germany now began the “peaceful penetration” of 
Asiatic Turkey. The fertile regions of Asia Minor 
and Mesopotamia, sparcely settled and undeveloped 
offered many opportunities for the investment of 
erman capital, markets for German goods, and 
homes for the superfluous population of Germany. 
Economic exploitation was to be followed by mili¬ 
tary and political control of the Ottoman Empire 
with Germany in command of the Turkish armies 
and supreme throughout the wide area from 


The Eastern Question 


667 


the Black Sea to the Indian Ocean. All these 
dazzling possibilities were foreshadowed in the 
scheme for a railway intended to unite Constantinople 
with Bagdad and the head of the Persian Gulf. 



Nearly all the line as far as Bagdad had been com¬ 
pleted by the opening of the World War. German 
capitalists also began to construct a branch line run¬ 
ning from Aleppo in Syria to Medina and Mecca in 
Arabia. It is obvious that the Bagdad Railway, with 
its connections, menaced the position of Great Britain 
in India and British control of Egypt and the Suez 
Canal. 













668 


International Relations 


J he practical annexation of Asiatic Turkey formed 
only a part of the kaiser’s ambitious policy. European 
Turkey, the Balkan states, and Austria-Hungary were 
to unite with Germany into a huge combination for 
purposes of offense and defense. “Middle Europe” 
might ultimately draw within its embrace Holland, 
the Scandinavian states, and a projected Polish king¬ 
dom to include almost the entire manufacturing area 
of Russia. German commerce would exploit and 
German militarism would dominate every one of 
these countries. 

The success of the “Middle Europe” project 
depended upon the attitude of the independent Chris¬ 
tian states of the Balkans. It was essential that they 
should be amenable to German, or at least to Austro- 
Hungarian, influence and that the influence of Russia 
should be entirely eliminated from their councils, 
ynastic relationships seemed to make this possible, 
nnce (afterwards Tsar) Ferdinand of Bulgaria 
was a German; King Charles of Rumania was the 
kaisers kinsman; and the wife of the future King 
Constantine of Greece was the kaiser’s sister. Even 
Serbia had a pro-Austrian ruler until 1903, when a 
revolution of Belgrade brought to the throne King 
Peter, who leaned toward Russia. The Balkan policy 

bLk'forTh .° WerS C u ° nSeqUently received a set- 

Berbn m C Y ^ ° f the railw *y ^om 

-Berlin to Constantinople. 

Events now moved rapidly in the Balkans Takino- 
advantage of the Young Turk Revolution. Austria 

He^eZ/n" ^ t0 B.niaa" d 

from n CSe tW ° P rovin ces had been freed 

torn the direct control of the Turks by Serbia and 

ussia, during the Russo-Turkish War of the 


The Eastern Question 


669 


’seventies, but the Congress of Berlin had handed 
them over to Austria-Hungary to occupy and admin¬ 
ister. Their annexation, violating the Berlin settle¬ 
ment, raised a storm of protests in Serbia. The people 
of Bosnia and Herzegovina are Slavs, and Serbia 
expected some day to incorporate them and the 
Montenegrins in a South Slavic state stretching from 
the Danube to the Adriatic. Russia also seethed with 
indignation at what she considered an affront to Slavic 
peoples by a Teutonic power.- Russian troops now 
began to move toward the Austrian border. At this 
moment Germany ranged herself by the side of Aus¬ 
tria-Hungary “in shining armor,” as the kaiser after¬ 
ward expressed it, and dared Russia to attack her 
ally. Both France and Great Britain refused to join 
Russia in a general European war, and that country, 
not yet recovered from the struggle with Japan, there¬ 
upon gave way, withdrew her support from Serbia, 
and looked on in deep humiliation while the Central 
Powers proceeded to reap the fruits of their diplo¬ 
matic triumph. 

The First Balkan War (1912-1913) produced 
another international crisis. Early in the course of 
the struggle the Serbians seized Durazzo, a port in 
the Turkish province of Albania, in order to gain 
access to the Adriatic. The Montenegrins also cap¬ 
tured Scutari, another important Albanian town. 
Austria-Hungary would not consent to these annexa¬ 
tions which barred her own expansion to the south¬ 
east,’and demanded that Durazzo and Scutari be 
evacuated. Germany, as before, backed her ally. A 
o-eneral European war again seemed very near, unti 
Serbia and Montenegro yielded to the pressure put 
upon them by the great powers and gave up t eir 


670 


International Relations 


conquests. 1 he result was the formation of a new 
Albanian state, with a German prince as its ruler and 
undei German influence. The Central Powers had 
won another diplomatic triumph in the Balkans. 

The outcome of the Second Balkan War (1913), 
however, profoundly disappointed the Central 
Powers. The Treaty of Bukharest left Germany’s 
vassal, Turkey, with only a footing in Europe; it 
humiliated Bulgaria, the friend of Austria-Hungary; 
and it planted a hostile Serbia squarely in Macedonia, 
where she blocked the “Middle Europe” scheme.’ 
Even before the treaty had been signed, Austria- 
Hungary made ready to attack Serbia, but held her 
hand when Italy refused to cooperate, on the ground 
that the terms of the Triple Alliance required its 
members to aid each other only in case of a defensive 
war. Germany also seems to have dissuaded Austria- 
Hungary from undertaking her perilous adventure 
m 1913. The hour had not yet struck to precipitate 
a European conflict. Meanwhile, the Central Powers 
fevenshly hastened military preparations, and the 
other countries, seeing the war clouds on the horizon, 
ikewise took steps to increase their arms and armies. 


MILITARISM 

Between 1871 and 1914 there were wars in the 
Balkans, ,n Asia, and in Africa. The nations of 
western Europe, however, did not draw the sword 
against one another for more than forty years Yet 
at no other period had there been such enoimou" 
expenditures for armaments, such huge standing 
rmies, and such colossal navies. Western Europe 

upon Har. 63 ' 6 ’ “ “ armed ^ce” based 


Militarism 


671 


The improvements in weapons in the latter part of 
the nineteenth century made warfare a branch of 
applied science requiring expert technical knowledge 
both on the battle-field and in the munition factory. 
One needs only refer to the breech-loading rifle, 
machine gun, and smokeless powder, together with 
the continuous enlargement of cannon and the use of 
long-range, high-explosive projectiles. In death¬ 
dealing efficiency these new means of destruction 
threw all previous inventions into the shade. Having 
created modern civilization, science seemed ready to 
destroy it. 

The changed methods of fighting demanded the 
‘‘nation in arms,” rather than the old-fashioned 
armies composed of volunteers and mercenaries. As 
early as the eighteenth century, European monarchs 
began to draft soldiers from among their subjects, 
but at first only artisans and peasants. During the 
revolutionary era France resorted to forced levies, 
allowing, however, many exemptions. Prussia went 
further during the Napoleonic era and adopted uni¬ 
versal military service, as well in time of peace as in 
time of war. All able-bodied men were to receive 
several years’ training in the army and then pass into 
the reserve, whence they could be called to the colors 
upon the outbreak of hostilities. This Prussian sys¬ 
tem, having proved its worth in the War of Libera¬ 
tion against Napoleon, was extended by William I 
soon after his accession to the throne. The speedy 
triumphs of Prussia in 1866 and 1870 led all the prin¬ 
cipal nations, except Great Britain, to adopt universal 
military service. Europe thus became an armed 
camp,” with five million men constantly preparing 

for war. 


672 


International Relations 


Great Britain found sufficient protection in her 
fleet, which it had long been the British policy to 
maintain at a strength at least equal to that of any 
other two powers. Her widespread empire depends 
upon control of the seas, and, being no longer self- 
supporting, she would face starvation in time of war 
were she blockaded by an enemy. Germany, how¬ 
ever, would not acquiesce in British maritime 


supremacy, and under the inspiration of the kaiser, 
who declared that the “trident must be in our hands,” 
started in 1898 to build a mighty navy. Helgoland, 
off the mouth of the Elbe, was converted into a naval 
base, a second Gibraltar. The Kiel Canal, originally 
completed in 1896, was reconstructed in 1914 to allow 
the passage of the largest warships between the Baltic 
and the North Sea. Great Britain watched these 
preparations with unconcealed dismay. Her answer 
was the complete reorganization of the British fleet 
the scrapping of nearly two hundred vessels as obso¬ 
lete, and the laymg-down of dreadnoughts and super¬ 
dreadnoughts. I he naval rivalry threatened to 
become so enormously expensive that British states¬ 
men twice proposed a “naval holiday,” that is an 
agreement to keep down the rate of Lrease. But 
Germany refused to enter into an arrangement which 
would have left Great Britain still mistress of ffie 

oCdb. 


The crushing burden of standing armies and navies 
produced a popular agitation in many countries to 

as the result^of 6 ^ m ^ ement took Poetical shape 
the result of a proposal by Nicholas II for an inter 

Sisarlm Tr’t Wh ' iCh Sh ° Uld 3rrange a S eneral 

disarmament. The tsar’s rescript of 1898 was'a tell¬ 
ing indictment of militarism in these words: “The 


Militarism 


6 73 


preservation of peace has been put forward as the 
object of international policy. In its name the great 
states have concluded between themselves powerful 
alliances; the better to guarantee peace, they have 
developed their military forces in proportions 
hitherto unprecedented, and still continue to increase 
them without shrinking from any sacrifice. All these 
efforts, nevertheless, have not yet been able to bring 
about the beneficent results of the desired pacifica¬ 
tion.In proportion as the armaments of each 

power increase, do they less and less fulfill the objects 
which the governments have set before themselves. 
Economic crises, due in great part to the system of 
armaments a outrance, and the continual danger 
which lies in this accumulation of war material, are 
transforming the ‘armed peace’ of our days into a 
crushing burden which the peoples have more and 
more difficulty in bearing. It appears evident, then, 
that if this state of things continues, it will inevitably 
lead to the very cataclysm which it is desired to avert, 
and the horrors of which make every thinking being 
shudder in anticipation.” 

As the result of the tsar’s rescript, delegates from 
twenty-six sovereign states met in 1899 at The Hague, 
Holland, in the First Peace Conference. A Second 
Peace Conference of forty-four sovereign states 
assembled in 1907. Attempts were made at these 
gatherings to mitigate the horrors of future wars, for 
instance, by prohibiting the use of asphyxiating gases 
and “dumdum” bullets and the dropping of projec¬ 
tiles from balloons. Every proposal to reduce arma¬ 
ments encountered, however, the strenuous opposition 
of Germany. The German government would not 
abandon those deep-laid schemes for conquest, first 


674 International Relations 

in Europe and ultimately throughout the world, 
which are summed up in one word—Pan-Germanism. 

Pan-Germanism 

The material development of Germany between 
1871 and 1914 was perhaps unparalleled in Euro¬ 
pean history. Her population increased from forty- 
one to sixty-five millions; her foreign trade more 
than trebled; and she became an industrial state 
second in Europe only to Great Britain. Proud of 
their army, navy, and police, of their handsome, well- 
ordered cities, of their technical schools and universi¬ 
ties, of their science, literature, music, and art, the 
Germans came to believe that they enjoyed a higher 
culture ( Kultur ) than any other people. The Rus¬ 
sians, by comparison, were barbarians; the French 
and Italians decadent; and the British and Ameri¬ 
cans, mere money-grabbers. “We are the salt of the 
earth,” the kaiser told his countrymen. Such ideas 
found a fertile soil in the exaggerated nationalism 
which had been fostered by the creation of the Ger¬ 
man Empire. 

The ardent belief in the superiority of German 
Kullin seemed to impose the duty of extending it to 
alien and therefore inferior peoples. This was Ger¬ 
many’s divine mission, according to her philosophers, 
historians, clergymen, and government officials! 
Even the kaiser could say in all seriousness that “God 
has called us to civilize the world; we are the mission¬ 
aries of human progress.” 

Before the world could be remade upon the Ger¬ 
man model, it had to be first conquered. Both back¬ 
ward and “decadent” nations possessed their own 
standards of civilization, which they would not 



•A-N'0-lVdJn9 r QXy0M*N- - W\3Hl 


Cn 

OO 













































Pan-Germanism 


675 

willingly abandon even for Germany’s so-called 
beneficent Kultur. World-power, in fact, meant war. 
Accordingly, the leaders of German society labored 
in press and school and pulpit to prove that war is a 
holy and righteous thing; that it corresponds in the 
life of nations to the “struggle for existence'’ in 
animal life; and that by war the weaker, incompetent 
states are weeded out and room is made for those 
stronger, more efficient states which alone deserve to 
inherit the earth. At the same time the people were 
led to consider war inevitable because of the hostile 
attitude of Russia, the “Slavic peril”; because 
France wanted revenge for her “Lost Provinces”; 
and because Great Britain only awaited a favorable 
opportunity to take the German navy and stifle Ger¬ 
man commerce. It was taught that Germany ought 
not to delay until her enemies were ready for a com¬ 
bined attack; she should attack first and reap the 
advantage of her military preparedness. This idea 
of an offensive-defensive war particularly appealed 
to a people who owed their national greatness to 
successful conflicts deliberately incurred by unscru¬ 
pulous rulers. 

The autocratic nature of the German government, 
vesting the control of foreign affairs so largely with 
the emperor, made the egotistical, domineering per¬ 
sonality of William II a very important factor in 
the international situation. The kaiser inherited the 
warlike traditions of Frederick the Great and 
William I, and even the shadowy claims to universal 
dominion put forth during the Middle Ages by the 
Holy Roman Emperors. His public utterances for 
thirty years were a constant glorification of war and 
conquest. One of his first speeches after mounting 


676 


International Relations 


the throne had an ominous sound: “I solemnly vow 
always to be mindful of the fact that the eyes of my 
ancestors are looking down upon me from the other 
world, and that one day I shall have to render to them 
an account both of the glory and the honor of the 
army.” And on another occasion he said: “It is the 
soldiers and the army, not parliamentary majorities, 
that have welded the German Empire together. My 
confidence rests upon the army.” 

Duiing the earlier years of his reign the kaiser 

seemed to find sufficient outlet for his restless energy 

in the development of Germany. The task lost its 

novelty and interest after a time, and he turned his 

uneasy gaze outside the empire to the aggrandizement 

of Germany abroad. More and more he came to be 

in sympathy with the aggressive policies advocated 

by the German militaristic class. It included the 

army and the navy officers, both active and retired; 

the large landowners ( Junkers ) ; the merchant 

princes, bankers, and manufacturers; the university 

professors, diplomats, and higher government officials 

—all, in short, who expected to profit from a greater 

and enormously more wealthy Germany. These men 

organized in 1890 the Pan-German League, which 

soon became the most powerful political organization 
in the empire. 

The Pan-Germans thought that they could conquer 
urope nation by nation. They expected to over¬ 
whelm France by a sudden blow, capture Paris, seize 
die former Franche-Comte and what remained of 
tench Lorraine, together with the Channel ports 
ake the French colonies, and levy an indemnit^ 
arge enough to pay the expenses of the war. Then 
diey intended to turn against Russia and annex her 


Pan-Germanism ^77 

Polish and Baltic provinces. Their Austrian ally 
meanwhile, would overrun Serbia and open the Ger¬ 
man “corridor” to the Orient. Once mistress of the 
Continent, Germany might look forward confidently 
to the issue of a future struggle with Great Britain 

and the British Empire for the dominion of the 
world. 

Every preparation was made, every precaution was 
taken, to insure a prompt, decisive victory. By the 
summer of 1914, a special war tax, to be expended on 
fortifications and equipment, had been collected. 
The army had been much increased. Enormous 
stocks of munitions had been accumulated. The Kiel 
Canal had been reconstructed. Strategic railways 
leading to the Belgian, French, and Russian frontiers 
had been laid down. All things were ready for “The 

Day.” Germany required only a pretext to launch 
the World War. 


CHAPTER XX 


THE WORLD WAR, 1914-1918 

Beginning of the War, 1914 

The pretext was soon supplied. On June 28, 1914, 
the archduke Francis Ferdinand, heir to the Haps- 
burg throne, and his wife were assassinated at Sara¬ 
jevo, the capital of Bosnia. The murderer, a Bosnian, 
and therefore an Austrian subject, belonged to a 
Serbian secret society which aimed to separate Bosnia 
and Herzegovina from the Dual Monarchy and add 
them to Serbia. The Austrian government, after 
conducting an investigation, alleged that he had been 
aided by Serbian officials, with the connivance of the 
government of Serbia. This accusation has never 
been proved. No doubt exists, however, that the 
Sarajevo assassination was a political crime, the 
natural outcome of the propaganda among the South 
Slavs (Jugoslavs) for the expulsion of Austria from 

the Balkans as she had been expelled from Italy and 
Germany. 

Nearly a month passed. Then on July 23, Austria- 
Hungary sent a note to Serbia, harsh, peremptory, 
and, except in name, an ultimatum. It demanded 
that Serbia suppress anti-Austrian publications and 
organizations, dismiss from the army and the civil 
service all those implicated in the anti-Austrian 
propaganda, and eliminate anti-Austrian teachers 
fiom the public schools. Serbia was further to allow 
the “collaboration” of Austrian officials in carrying 


Beginning of the War 679 

out these measures. Forty-eight hours only were 
granted for the unconditional acceptance or rejection 
of the ultimatum. 

Serbia replied on July 25. She agreed to all the 
Austrian demands except those which required the 
presence on Serbian soil of representatives of the 
Dual Monarchy. Such an arrangement, Serbia 
pointed out, would violate her rights as a sovereign 
state—would make her, in fact, an Austrian vassal. 
She concluded by offering to submit the entire dis¬ 
pute to arbitration by the international tribunal at 
The Hague or to the mediation of the great powers. 
Austria-Hungary rejected the Serbian reply as insin¬ 
cere and on July 28 declared war upon her little 
neighbor. 

Russia, the protector of the Slavs of the Balkans, 
could not look on without concern while a great 
Teutonic power destroyed the independence of a 
weak Slav state. But if Russia intervened to aid 
Serbia, by making war on Austria-Hungary, then 
Germany, as the latter’s ally, would surely attack 
Russia; and France, bound to Russia in firm alliance, 
would be obliged to attack Germany. Efforts to 
preserve the peace of Europe began at once. The 
Triple Entente first asked Austria-Hungary to extend 
the time limit for the answer from Serbia. Austria- 
Hungary declined to do so. Then Great Britain and 
France urged Serbia to make her answer to the ulti¬ 
matum as conciliatory as possible. After the Serbian 
reply had been delivered, Great Britain, through Sir 
Edward Grey, Minister for Foreign Affairs, sug¬ 
gested that the four great powers not directly in¬ 
volved should hold a conference in London to adjust 
the Austro-Serbian difficulty. France, Italy, and 



68 o 


The World War 


Russia accepted the suggestion. Germany rejected it. 
Finally, Great Britain invited Germany herself to 
propose some method of mediation, but the German 
government declared that the whole dispute con¬ 
cerned only Austria-Hungary and Serbia and that 
Russia should not interfere in it. If Russia did inter¬ 
fere, Germany would back her ally. 

We know now why these and other peace proposals 
during that last fateful week of July, 1914, were 
ineffective. Germany and Austria-Hungary had 
already decided for war. The present republican 
government of Austria published in the latter part 
of 1919 an official volume of documents found in the 
archives of the former imperial government, from 
which it appears that a ministerial meeting held in 
Vienna, July 7, 1914, took the momentous decision to 
force war on Serbia. This was to be done by sending 
a note with such impossible demands that the Serbian 
government would be compelled to reject them. An 
Austro-Hungarian declaration of war would then 
follow in due course. The Foreign Minister, Count 
Berchtold, who presided at the meeting and after¬ 
wards signed the note to Serbia, declared to the min¬ 
isters that the kaiser had “emphatically” assured him 
of the unconditional support of Germany in case of 
a warlike complication with Serbia.” Germany was 
thus prepared to support Austria-Hungary to the 
uttermost. 

Russia had yielded to the Central Powers in the 
Balkan crises of r9o8 and 1912-1913; in I9 i 4 she 
accepted their challenge. Russian troops began to 
mobilize against Austria-Hungary on July 29 and 
against Germany on July 30. The German govern¬ 
ment, which had already begun military preparations, 


Beginning of the War 


681 

sent an ultimatum to Russia ordering that country to 
start demobilization within twelve hours or accept the 
consequences (July 31). Russia did not reply. The 
kaiser, exeicising his right to make “defensive war¬ 
fare, immediately signed the document declaring 
that a state of hostilities existed between Germany 
and Russia (August 1). 

Asked by Germany what was to be her attitude In 
the coming struggle, France replied that she “would 
do that which her interests dictated,” and began to 
mobilize. Germany then declared war on France 
(August 3). It is now known that had France 
decided to remain neutral, thus repudiating her 
treaty with Russia, the German government intended 
to demand the surrender of the fortresses of Toul and 
Verdun as a pledge of French neutrality until the 
close of the war. Germany thus showed herself so 
anxious to embroil France in the conflict that she 
made demands which that country could not and was 
not expected to accept. 

Germany also tried to learn the attitude of Great 
Britain. The German Chancellor, Bethmann-Holl- 
weg, promised that if Great Britain would stand 
aloof, Germany would agree not to take any Euro¬ 
pean territory from France, but he refused to give 
assurances as to the French colonies. Sir Edward 
Grey retorted that Great Britain could never con¬ 
clude such a disgraceful bargain with Germany, at the 
expense of France. The British Foreign Minister, 
however, made it clear that Great Britain would not 
be drawn into a Franco-German War unless France 
and Russia rejected “any reasonable proposal” for 
peace put forward by the Central Powers. After 
the German declaration of war on Russia and the 


682 


The World War 


German invasion of neutral Luxemburg, Great 
Britain promised France the help of the British fleet 
in case the German fleet operated against the unpro¬ 
tected western coast of France. The British govern¬ 
ment could not honorably do less, for, in accordance 
with the Anglo-French entente, France since 1912 
had concentrated her fleet in the Adediterranean so 
that the British fleet might be concentrated in the 
North Sea against the possibly hostile German navy. 

The neutrality of Belgium was guaranteed by the 
European powers, including France and Prussia, both 
in 1831 and 1839; furthermore, the Second Peace 
Conference in 1907, with Germany consenting, 
expressly declared the territory of neutral states to 
be inviolable. True to its treaty engagements, the 
French government on August 1 announced its inten¬ 
tion to respect Belgian neutrality. The next day, 
however, Germany addressed a note to Belgium 
demanding permission to move troops across the 
country into France and threatening, in case of a 
refusal, to leave Belgium’s fate to the “decision of 
arms.” The Belgian government, under King Albert, 
declined to “sacrifice the honor of the nation and 
betray its duty toward Europe.” On August 4 the 
German army invaded Belgium. Bethmann-Holl- 
weg frankly admitted before the Reichstag, the same 
day, that the invasion was “a breach of international 
law,” and the kaiser, in a cable message to President 
Wilson acknowledged that Belgian neutrality “had 
to be violated by Germany on strategical grounds.” 

An invasion of Belgium was, in fact, vital to the 
success of the German plan of campaign, which 
involved a swift, crushing blow at the French before 
Russian mobilization could be completed. No rapid 


Beginning of the War 


683 


movement against France was possible from the east, 
first, because the high bluffs and narrow river valleys 
in this part of the country made defense easy; and, 
second, because the eastern frontier had been pro¬ 
tected, since the Franco-German War, by fortresses 
all the way from Verdun to Belfort. An attack from 
the northeast presented fewer difficulties, for a com¬ 
paratively level plain, well provided with roads and 
railways, stretches from Germany through Belgium 
and France to the environs of Paris. Furthermore, 
France had not strongly fortified her frontier on the 
side of Belgium, having trusted to the neutrality of 
that country for protection. 

The neutrality of Belgium has been a cardinal 
point in British foreign policy since the Middle 
Ages. To Great Britain it seems essential that the 
Belgian coast shall not be occupied by a strong mili¬ 
tary power, thus menacing British control of the 
Channel. Over this question she fought with Philip 
II of Spain in the sixteenth century and later with 
Louis XIV and Napoleon. Great Britain, moreover, 
had her explicit treaty obligations to Belgium, obliga¬ 
tions which no honorable nation could fail to respect. 
When, therefore, news came that German troops 
were entering Belgium, the British government, at 
this time controlled by the Liberals under Mr. 
Asquith, sent an ultimatum to Germany, requiring 
assurances by midnight, August 4, that Belgian neu¬ 
trality would be respected. Germany refused, and 
Bethmann-Hollweg, in his final interview with the 
British ambassador at Berlin, complained that Great 
Britain was about to fight a kindred nation just for 
“a scrap of paper.” About midnight Great Britain 
declared war on Germany. 


684 


The World War 

The Western Front 


The war quickly converted the Triple Entente into 
a Triple Alliance. Great Britain, France, and Rus¬ 
sia engaged not to make peace separately and to accept 
a general peace only on terms agreeable to all of 
them. The instinct of self-preservation, which had 
united Europe against France under Louis XIV and 
Napoleon, was now aroused against the military 
domination of Germany under the kaiser. As on 
previous occasions, Great Britain, with her fleet, her 
money, and eventually her army, formed the key¬ 
stone of the coalition. 

Geimany and Austria-Hungary, though less popu¬ 
lous and wealthy than their antagonists, held a better 
geogi aphical position, and at the outset they possessed 
a superiority both in the number of trained soldiers 
and in guns, munitions, and equipment. Above all, 
they were prepared. Austria-Hungary had already 
massed part of her army against Serbia, while Ger¬ 
many, by means of her strategic railroads, could move 
and concentiate troops on her eastern or western 
frontier with greater speed than either Russia or 
France. Should it prove to be a short war, the Cen¬ 
tral Powers seemed likely to win an overwhelming 
victory. & 

Hostilities began on the western front with the 
converging advance of the German armies in three 
groups, one through Belgium, one through Luxem¬ 
burg, and one from Lorraine against the eastern 
ortresses of France. The Germans occupied Luxem¬ 
burg without resistance and then threw themselves 
upon the Belgians. The fortresses of Liege and 
Namur, supposedly impregnable, were smashed to 


The Western Front 


685 


pieces by the huge German siege guns, and Brussels 
itself was captured. Nevertheless, the Belgian resist¬ 
ance—heroic, unexpected—delayed by at least twelve 
days the arrival of the Germans on the frontiers of 
Franee. The French gained time to complete mobili¬ 
zation and the British to send an expeditionary force 
of one hundred thousand men. After the first clash 



Plan of the Battle of the Marne 


British army (Field-Marshal French). 

VI. French army (Manoury). 

V. “ “ (Franchet d’Esperey). 

IX. “ “ (Foch). 

IV. “ . “ (Langle de Cary). 

III. “ “ (Sarrail). 

1. German army (Von Kluck). 

2. “ “ (Von Billow). 

3. “ “ (Von Hausen). 

4. “ “ (Duke of Wiirtemberg). 

5. “ “ (Crown Prince of Prussia). 

at Mons, the Anglo-French armies retired southward, 
fighting delaying actions all the way. The invaders 
soon crossed the Marne and at the nearest point came 
within fifteen miles of Paris. The opposing forces 
were now extended in an immense semi-circle, one 
hundred and fifty miles in length, from the vicinity of 
Paris to a little below Verdun. 
















686 


The World War 


At the Marne the Allied commanders, General 
Johfre and Sir John French, stayed the retreat. A new 
army (the Sixth Army), which had been quietly pre¬ 
pared in Paris and of whose existence the Germans 
were ignorant, was suddenly launched at their 
exposed right flank. At the same time General Foch’s 
magnificent assault drove in their center on both sides 
of the marshes of St.-Gond. The weight of the com¬ 
bined attack sent them back in confusion, and with 
heavy losses of men and material, across the Aisne 
River. The importance of these successes was vastly 
increased by the simultaneous victories of the French 
on their eastern frontier, where they held the enemy 
back in the Argonne and before Nancy. Such was 
the seven days’ battle of the Marne. The Germans 
had been out-generaled and outfought; German plans 

for a speedy triumph had been upset; and Paris had 
been saved. 


Both sides now bent every effort to extend their 
lines northward to the sea. The Germans hoped to 
seize Dunkirk and Calais, two important Channel 
ports, and thus to interrupt the direct line of com¬ 
munication between Great Britain and France - but 
the AHies reached the Channel first and farther north 
at Nieuport. Then followed in October and Novem- 
er, 1914> the first battle of Ypres, when the Germans 
y massed attacks, tried vainly to break through the 
British lines. Near the coast the Belgians cut the 
d-kes of the river Yser, flooding the lowlands and 
stopping any advance in this direction. Trench war- 
are now began to replace open fighting all along the 
western front from the North Sea to the Swiss 
frontier, a distance of six hundred miles 

Repeated efforts to break the deadlock on the west- 


The Western Front 


687 


ern front marked the year 1915. Both French and 
British made some progress in clearing enemy 
trenches by means of concentrated shell-fire, but as 
yet the production of high-explosive shells was insuf¬ 
ficient for prolonged “blasting operations.” The 
Germans, on their part, employed poison-gas—con¬ 
trary to the terms of the Hague Conventions—in the 
second battle of Ypres, during April and May. The 
situation was critical for a time, until the French and 
British manufactured gas masks to overcome the 
choking fumes. The Allies were eventually obliged 
themselves to use this hideous device against the 
enemy. 

The first half of 1916 was marked by the German 
assault upon Verdun, the most important French 
stronghold on the eastern frontier. The siege of the 
city lasted nearly five months and cost the lives of at 
least half a million men on both sides. The Germans 
under the crown prince were determined to take the 
place at any cost. The French were equally deter¬ 
mined to defend it at any cost. “They shall not pass! ’ 
became the battle-cry of all France. 1 hey did not 
pass. More than that, in the fall of 1916 the French 
resumed the offensive and within seven hours drove 
the Germans back almost to their original lines. 
Ruined Verdun like ruined Ypres, thus remained in 
Allied hands. 

What more than anything else relieved the pressure 
on Verdun was the Anglo-French attack against the 
German lines along the river Somme. By this time 
Great Britain had adopted conscription and had built 
up a magnificent army commanded by Sir Douglas 
Haig. The Allies now possessed more heavy guns 
and munitions than the Germans, and in the tanks 




* 



688 


































































The Western Front 


689 


a weapon destined to prove its value in breaking the 
trench deadlock. The Allied advance took place on 
a front of twenty miles to a maximum depth of about 
nine miles. It was finally checked by German coun¬ 
ter-attacks and by bad weather, which turned the 
battle-field into a sea of mud. 

To forestall another attack, the Germans in the 
spring of 1917 retired on a wide front to the shorter 
and more defensible Hindenburg Line. The terri¬ 
tory evacuated by them was laid completely waste, 
every building being destroyed, vineyards uprooted, 
and orchards cut down. The Allies advanced over 
this wilderness and from April to December con¬ 
ducted a steady offensive, which brought them appre¬ 
ciable gains. The Hindenburg Line still held, how¬ 
ever, when the approach of winter put an end to 
active operations. 

The German treatment of Belgium and northern 
France aroused the horror of the civilized world. 
Deliberate, systematic massacres of the civil popula¬ 
tion to prevent or punish resistance, the looting and 
burning of entire villages, the destruction of Louvain 
with its famous university, the shelling of the Cloth 
Hall of Ypres and the cathedral of Reims, the impo¬ 
sition of excessive taxes and heavy fines on Belgian 
and French cities, the robbing of Belgium and north¬ 
ern France of coal, metals, machinery, and raw 
materials, finally, the forcible deportation of tens of 
thousands of civilians, both men and women, for 
forced labor in Germany—these were some of the 
atrocities and outrages which characterized German 
treatment of the conquered territory. The inhabitants 
might have perished had it not been for the efficient 
system of relief organized by an American, Herbert 


690 


The World War 


C. Hoover, who enlisted the help of the Allies and 
of the United States in providing food, clothing, 
and other necessaries of life for the invaded districts. 


The Eastern Front 


1 here was no deadlock on the eastern front. The 
Russians mobilized more rapidly than had been 
expected and put large forces in the field, under the 
general command of the grand duke Nicholas, an 
uncle of the tsar. Their plan of campaign involved 
a simultaneous advance against the Germans in East 
Prussia and the Austrians in Galicia. The Russian 
armies which entered East Prussia, a difficult country 
of lakes, marshes, and rivers, were surprised and well- 
nigh annihilated by Hindenburg at the battle of Tan- 
nenberg (August, 1914). The following January, 
when the Russians again ventured into this part of 
Germany, Hindenburg won another overwhelming 
victory at the battle of the Mazurian Lakes. 

The Russians met better luck in Galicia. They 
overran all this Austrian province and by the spring 
w 1915 egan to penetrate the Carpathian passes into 
Hungary These successes had the further result of 
causing tie withdrawal of German troops from the 
western front, with a consequent weakening of Ger- 

British ° ffenS1Ve P ° Wer against the French and 


The summer of 1915 saw some of the most tre¬ 
mendous engagements of the entire war. Hinden- 

bot'h the cTTp C ° mmand of the e ^tern armies of 
both the Central Powers and started a terrific “drive” 

in I oland and Galicia. The result of the fighting is 

.he'e"„ a ™ ,hC accom P an y in g map, which show 
enormous territory reoccupied or newly acquired 


The Eastern Front 




V/////A Allies 

Central Powers 

Farthest Russian advance, 1914-1915 

• tmimm Russian advance, 1916 (Brusilov’s drive) ___ 

Battle line, March 1918 (signing of Brest-Litovsk Treaty 


The Eastern Front 
































































































































































692 


The World War 


by the Central Powers. At the end of 1915 the battle¬ 
line on the eastern front stretched from the Gulf of 
Riga to the Rumanian frontier. 

Russia’s recuperative power was strikingly ex¬ 
hibited the following year. General Brusilov at- 
attacked the Austro-German armies on a wide front 
between the Pripet Marshes and Bukowina, pushing 
them back from twenty to fifty miles and making 
huge captures of men and supplies. The outbreak 
of the Russian Revolution, early in 1917, made it 
impossible to continue the offensive. From this time 
there was little more fighting on the eastern front. 
Nevertheless, Russia’s part in the World War should 
not be minimized. The sacrifices which she made 
without stint during the first three years of the 
weie essential to the ultimate victory of the 

Allies. 


The Balkan and Italian Fronts 

As soon as the war broke out, Montenegro made 
common cause with Serbia. The three other Chris¬ 
tian states of the Balkans at first did not declare them¬ 
selves. Bulgaria had no love for Austria-Hungary 
but she cordially hated Serbia, her most successful 
foe in the Second Balkan War. Rumania was 
friendly neither to Austria-Hungary nor to Russia, 
for both possessed provinces which she wished to 
redeem from alien rule. Public opinion in Greece, 
as voiced by Venizelos, the prime minister, favored 
the Allies. The pro-German King Constantine and 

the court party managed, nevertheless, to preserve a 
nominal neutrality. 

Turkey, largely controlled by Germany and fear- 
of Russia s designs on Constantinople, soon 


The Balkan and Italian Fronts 693 

espoused the cause of the Central Powers. Her 
entrance did not at first appreciably affect the situa¬ 
tion, for she was still cut off from her associates by a 
neutral Bulgaria and a hostile Serbia. The sultan 
proclaimed a holy war of extermination against “the 
enemies of Islam.” Contrary to German hopes, the 
Moslems of North Africa, Egypt, and India, instead 
of revolting, loyally supported France and Great 
Britain. An attempt in 1915 by an Anglo-French 
fleet to force the Dardanelles and take Constantino¬ 
ple proved disastrous, however. No greater success 
attended the heroic efforts of the “Anzacs” (Austra¬ 
lians and New Zealanders) to secure a footing on the 
peninsula of Gallipoli, and the troops were finally 
withdrawn from this graveyard of Allied hopes. 

After long hesitation Bulgaria also threw in her 
lot with the Central Powers. The situation in the 
Balkans now changed overnight. Brave little Ser¬ 
bia, who earlier in the war had twice expelled the 
Austrians, quickly collapsed under the double attack 
of Austro-Germans from the north and Bulgarians 
from the east. Montenegro, Serbia’s ally, was like¬ 
wise conquered, together with northern Albania. 
The triumph of the Central Powers had the impor¬ 
tant result of opening up railway communication 
between Berlin and Constantinople. 

Military operations in the Balkans were not yet 
over. Influenced by the success of Brusilov’s “drive” 
on the eastern front and the Anglo-French victories 
at Verdun and on the Somme in the West, Rumania 
decided to join the Allies, in order to liberate her 
“unredeemed” peoples from alien rule. Her armies 
promptly invaded Transylvania. A German- 
Austrian-Bulgarian counter-stroke drove them out 


694 


The World War 


and led to the speedy conquest of two-thirds of their 
own territory. The Rumanian collapse brought 
enormous advantages to the Central Powers, who 
now had access to the grain fields and oil wells of 
Rumania. It also shortened their battle-front by five 
hundred miles and facilitated their communications 
with Bulgaria and Turkey. 

Aftei tlie failure of the Dardanelles campaign a 
large Anglo-French force had been gathered behind 
the defenses of Salonika in Greece, partly as a threat 
to Turkey and Bulgaria and partly to prevent King 
Constantine from bringing Greece into the war on the 
side of the Central Powers. He was finally deposed 
by the Allies, who placed his second son, Alexander, 
on the throne. Venizelos, whom Constantine had 
dismissed from office, became prime minister once 
more and immediately took steps to insure the 
cooperation of his country with the Allies. The Bal¬ 
kan front henceforth extended westward from the 
Aegean to the Adriatic. 

Italy declared neutrality in 1914, giving the same 
reason which she had given in 1913, namely, that the 
terms of the Triple Alliance did not bind her to 
assist the Central Powers in an offensive war. But 
Italy was unable to remain neutral. Union with the 
llies meant an opportunity to wrest Italia Irredenta 
from the grasp of Austria-Hungary, her traditional 
foe Furthermore, Great Britain, France, and Rus¬ 
sia by a secret treaty, had promised Italy a consider¬ 
able portion of the Dalmatian coast and the adjacent 
is aiids, besides a share of Turkish territories, should 
the Ottoman Empire be partitioned as a result of the 
war. W hile the pressure of national interests thus 
influenced the decision of the Italian government, 


The Balkan and Italian Fronts 695 


even more compelling, perhaps, was the conviction 
on the part of the Italian people that the Allies were 
fighting in a just cause for everything that mankind 
holds dear. Italy, an ancient home of civilization, 



The Italian Front 


would aid her Latin sister France in defending civili¬ 
zation against what seemed a fresh inroad of the Ger¬ 
manic barbarians. 

The entrance of Italy added another front and 
almost completed the encirclement of the Central 
Powers. Italian armies marched against Trieste and 
the Trentino, but for a long time made slow progress. 
The Austrians held the crests of the mountains and 
the passes; consequently, the Italians had to force 
their way upward in the face of the enemy. During 
the summer of 1916 they finally crossed the Isonzo 
River and occupied Gorizia on the way to Trieste. 
The break-up of Russia after the revolution freed 



















696 


The World War 


large forces of the Central Powers for service against 
Italy. An Austro-German attack, late in 1917, undid 
all that the Italians had accomplished in more than 
two years of hard fighting and forced them back as 
far as the Piave River. There, with some aid from 
French and British troops, the Italians checked their 
foes. 

The military situation in Europe at the end of 1917 
clearly favored the Central Powers. On the western 
front they held Luxemburg, nearly all of Belgium, 
and a broad strip of northern France containing val¬ 
uable coal and iron mines. On the eastern front they 
held Poland, Lithuania, and Courland, the. richest 
industrial districts of the Russian Empire. They had 
overrun Serbia, Montenegro, and a large part of 
Rumania. They had taken most of Venetia from the 
Italians. Their only territorial losses to the Allies 
were in southern Alsace and eastern Galicia. A dif¬ 
ferent picture, however, was presented outside of 
Europe and on the sea. 


The War Outside of Europe and on the Sea, 

19 1 4* 1917 ’ 

The sea-power of the Allies enabled them to cap¬ 
ture Germany’s colonial possessions. The British 
and French seized Togo and the Cameroons in West 
Africa. British troops from the Union of South 
rica assisted by loyal Boers, took German South¬ 
west Africa, and in cooperation with Belgian forces 
ook German East Africa. The German possessions 

£ the Pa c‘fic w er e conquered by the Australians, the 
New Zealanders, and the Japanese. 

Jsrm entered the war ° n the side ° f the 

Hies. She had not forgotten the kaiser’s slighting 


War Outside Europe and on the Sea 697 

references to the “Yellow Peril” nor the fact that 
Germany had been chiefly instrumental in depriving 
her of Port Arthur, after the Chino-Japanese War in 
1895. Moreover, Japan had entered into an alliance 
with Great Britain providing for mutual support 
were the territorial rights or special interests of 
either power in the Far East threatened by another 
power. Japan’s special contribution to the Allied 
cause was the capture of Kiaochow, the German 
naval base and stronghold in the Far East. 

Germany’s ally, Turkey, suffered the loss of her 
outlying possessions. Great Britain proclaimed a 
protectorate over Egypt and set up a new ruler, who 
was to be quite independent of the sultan at Constan¬ 
tinople. The British also encouraged a revolt of the 
Arabs against Turkey. Arab troops secured Mecca 
and Medina, the sacred places of Arabia, and estab¬ 
lished the kingdom of the Hejaz, which extends 
along the eastern coast of the Red Sea. 

Two other countries, long under the heel of the 
Turk, owed their liberation to Great Britain. An 
expeditionary force, largely composed of Indian con¬ 
tingents, invaded Mesopotamia by way of the Tigris 
River and entered Bagdad in triumph (March, 
1917). Another British army, starting from Egypt, 
invaded Palestine and took possession of Jerusalem 
(December, 1917). The Holy City, after nearly 
seven centuries, was again in Christian hands. 

The fleets of the Allies quickly swept the mer¬ 
chantmen of the Central Powers from the ocean and 
compelled their warships to keep the shelter of home 
ports. The few German raiders which remained at 
large after hostilities began were eithei captured or 
sunk. Once only did the German “High Seas Fleet” 


6 9 8 


The World War 


slip out of Kiel harbor, to be met by the British fleet 
off the coast of Jutland (May 31, 1916). Both sides 
suffered heavy losses in the engagement which fol¬ 
lowed. With the approach of darkness, however, the 
German ships returned to their safe anchorage and 
did not emerge again during the remainder of the 


war. 

Allied control of the sea led to an immediate 
blockade of Germany and Austria-Hungary. Three 
results followed. 1 he Allies were able freely to 
import food and raw materials from their colonies 
and neutral states. They kept the ocean lanes safe 
for the transportation of troops from Africa, India, 
Australia, and Canada, meanwhile preventing the 
return of Austro-German reservists from the United 
States and other countries. Finally, the Allies extin¬ 
guished the commerce of the Central Powers, who 
were henceforth hard pressed to find the necessary 

sinews of war for their armies and food for their 
civilian population. 


As the war continued, the Allied blockade became 
more and more stringent. At first, it prevented the 
importation into Germany only of munitions and 
other materials used for military purposes. In Feb¬ 
ruary, 1915, Great Britain also declared foodstuffs 
contraband, and as such liable to seizure if carried 
rom neutral coumries j n neutral ships to Germany. 

e British justified their action on the ground that 
he German government had already commandeered 
the stocks of grain in private hands to insure the feed¬ 
ing of its armies, in other words, had itself treated 

foodstuffs as practically indispensable to the conduct 
of the war. 


The Central Powe 


rs relied on submarines 


War Outside Europe and on the Sea 699 

(U-boats) to break the blockade. During the first 
months of the war the submarines attacked only 
enemy warships, but before long they began to des¬ 
troy without warning enemy merchantmen. This 
was in flagrant defiance of international law, which 
requires that a cargo or a passenger ship, under either 



an enemy or a neutral flag, shall be warned before 
being attacked and every effort made to safeguard 
human lives. After the British action in making food 
contraband, Germany went so far as to declare the 
waters around the British Isles a “war zone,” where 
all enemy merchantmen would be sunk, whether or 
not passengers and crews could be rescued. Neutral 
vessels were also warned against trespassing within 
the zone. It goes without saying that this declaration 
constituted only a “paper blockade, ’ of the sort that 
























































700 


The World War 


had been already prohibited by international law. 
The attempt to enforce the blockade by piratical 
means brought about the entrance of the United 
States into the World War. 


Intervention of the United States 

President Wilson announced the neutrality of the 
United States immediately upon the outbreak of hos¬ 
tilities. No other course seemed possible, in view of 
our traditional policy of non-interference in Euro¬ 
pean affairs and our peaceful temper. The President 
also asked for neutrality of sentiment on the part of 
the American people, so that the United States, as the 
one great nation at peace, might in time be able to 
mediate between the warring countries. While the 
government did remain neutral, American citizens 
could not avoid taking sides. The Central Powers 
had many active sympathizers, especially among 
those of German birth or parentage. Public opinion 
however, favored the Allies; above all, France to 
whom we owed our liberty, and Belgium, so innocent 
and so cruelly wronged. But as yet there was little 
thought of our active participation in the war. 

Before long the United States was drawn into dip¬ 
lomatic controversies with the belligerents. Presi¬ 
dent Wilson made repeated and vigorous protests to 
Great Britain regarding alleged infringements by 
that country of our neutral rights at sea, especially the 
detention of American ships in British ports to deter¬ 
mine whether or not they carried contraband goods. 

ut Geimany s proclamation of a “war zone” raised 
a much more serious issue. President Wilson pro- 
tested at once, declaring that the United States would 
hold the German government to a “strict accountabil- 


Intervention of the United States 701 

ity” for American ships destroyed or American 
citizens killed. Germany disclaimed all responsibil¬ 
ity for “accidents' 1 which might occur. U-boats pro¬ 
ceeded to torpedo the great British liner Lusitania, 
with the loss of over one hundred American men, 
women, and children (May 7, 1915), and also 
attacked American ships and those of other neutral 
nations. A “war of notes” between the United States 
and Germany finally extorted a German pledge not 
to sink merchant vessels without warning, unless they 
attempted to escape or offered resistance (May, 
1916). Germany never intended to keep her pledge 
any longer than convenient, as the frank Bethmann- 
Hollweg afterwards admitted in a public statement. 
At the end of January, 1917, she notified the Ameri¬ 
can government of her purpose to sink at sight all 
ships, both enemy and neutral, found within certain 
areas adjoining the British Isles, France and Italy, 
and in the eastern Mediterranean. Only narrow 
“safety lanes” to one British port and to Greek 
waters were left open for a limited amount of neutral 
traffic inside the barred zone. Germany thus pro¬ 
posed to violate every right to the freedom of the 
seas for which the United States had ever contended. 
President Wilson then severed diplomatic relations 
with the German government. This acr did not 
necessarily mean war, but it prepared the way for 
war. 

Submarine atrocities combined with Austro- 
German intrigues and conspiracies throughout the 
United States to arouse the warlike temper of the 
American people. From the very start official and 
non-official representatives of the Central Powers 
had done all they could to destroy munition plants 


702 


The World War 


and steel factories supplying the Allies. Funds were 
sent to the German ambassador for use in bribing 
Congress to declare an embargo on the traffic in 
munitions. Spies were multiplied throughout the 
country. Efforts were made to foment ill feeling in 
the United States against Japan and in Mexico 
against the United States. When Germany was 
about to proclaim unrestricted submarine warfare 
and believed the intervention of the United States 
would follow, she even invited Mexico to enter an 
alliance with her, promising aid in helping that coun¬ 
try recover the American Southwest. Such actions 
convinced our people that Germany and her satellites 
were running amuck under irresponsible rulers and 
that national safety, no less than national honor, 
required us to take the side of the Allies. 

American intervention soon became an accom¬ 
plished fact. The President, in an address before a 
special session of Congress, urged that since Germany 
had repeatedly committed hostile acts against the 
United States, we should formally accept the status 
of belligerent thu 5 thrust upon us. Congress re¬ 
sponded by declaring war on Germany (April 6, 
1917). Similar action was taken as to Austria- 
Hungary in December of the same year. Diplomatic 
relations with Turkey and Bulgaria were also broken. 

menca, the President said, had no quarrel with 
re peop e o the Central Powers, who had been led 
mdly into the war. America’s quarrel was with 
their autocratic governments. She asked nothing for 
herself, neither annexations nor indemnities. S She 
fought to put down divine-right monarchy secret 
diplomacy, and militarism, to promote among man- 
-ind that ordered liberty under law which she had 


Intervention of the United States 703 


long enjoyed, and to “make the world safe for demo¬ 
cracy.” In such a cause American citizens were pri¬ 
vileged to spend their lives and their fortunes. 

The United States prepared on a colossal scale for 
the war. Several battleships were immediately sent 



to Europe, besides a large number of torpedo boats 
and destroyers to fight the German submarines. The 
American navy, with some assistance fiom that of 
Great Britain, also planted more than 70,000 mines 
in the North Sea for a distance of 240 miles from 























704 


The World War 


the Orkney Islands to the coast of Norway. This 
deadly barrage was laid down in 1918. It effectually 
shut out German submarines from ingress into the 
Atlantic, for the narrow strait of Dover had already 
been closed by mines and nets. The government 
adopted conscription as the most rapid and demo¬ 
cratic method of raising an army, and two months 
after the declaration of war over ten million young 
men were registered for service. Officers’ training 
camps were established, and thirty-two cantonments 
virtual cities, each housing forty thousand men— 
were set up within ninety days to accommodate the 
private soldiers under training. Congress made huge 
appropriations for the construction of airplanes, for 
building cargo ships to replace those sunk by the 
enemy, for loans to the Allies, and for the purchase 
of immense quantities of food, clothing, rifles, 
machine guns, artillery, munitions, and all the other 
equipment of a modern fighting force. The money 
was laised paitly by increased taxation, partly by 
borrowing (the Liberty Loans). Other features of 
the American war program included fuel control, 
food control, under the efficient direction of Mr. 
Herbert Hoover, and government operation of rail¬ 
roads, express companies, and telegraph and tele¬ 
phone lines. At the same time, American engineers 
in France constructed docks, storage depots, bar¬ 
racks, and even entire railways for the reception of 
America’s armies. 

Several countries which so far had remained neu¬ 
tral followed the example of the United States during 
191 7 . Cuba, Panama, Brazil, Siam, Liberia, and 

7 lina a11 flun g down the gauntlet to Germany 
Including Portugal, which had joined the Allies dur- 



The World War in 1918 



705 




































































































706 


The World War 


ing the preceding year, nineteen sovereign states were 
now ranged against the four Central Powers. Ten 
Latin-American countries also broke off diplomatic 
relations with Germany in 1917, and five of them sub¬ 
sequently entered the war against that nation. 

The most important effort from a neutral source 
to end the war by negotiations came from Pope Bene¬ 
dict XV. On August 1, 1917, he addressed the bel¬ 
ligerent nations, proposing, in the main, a return to 
conditions which existed before 1914. Occupied ter¬ 
ritories were to be evacuated by both sides; indemni¬ 
ties were to be waived; and the questions relating to 
Alsace-Lorraine, the Trentino, Poland, and other 
regions were to be settled in a conciliatory spirit. 
The pope further urged a decrease of armaments, the 
establishment of compulsory arbitration, and, in gen¬ 
eral, the substitution of the “moral force of right” for 
the “material force of arms.” President Wilson 
replied to this appeal as spokesman of the Allies, 
declaring that no peace which would endure could 
be made with the autocratic and irresponsible Ger¬ 
man government. 

On January 8, 1918, the President in an address to 
Congress set forth fourteen points of a program for a 
just and lasting peace. They included: abolition of 
secret diplomacy; removal of economic barriers 
between the nations; reduction of armaments to the 
lowest point consistent with national safety; freedom 
of the p eas, impartial adjustment of colonial claims; 
evacuation by Germany of all conquered territory 
and the restoration of Belgium; readjustment of 
Italian frontiers along the lines of nationality; an 
independent Poland; self-government for the dif¬ 
ferent peoples of Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman 


The Russian Revolution 707 

Empire; and, finally, the formation of a general 
association of nations “for the purpose of affording 
mutual guarantees of political independence and 
territorial integrity to great and small states alike.” 
These proposals were generally accepted abroad as a 
succinct statement of the purposes of the Allies in 
the World War. 

The Russian Revolution 

The Russian Revolution, beginning on the eve of 
American intervention, revealed the war more clearly 
than ever as no mere conflict for the preservation of 
the balance of power in Europe, but as a world-wide 
struggle between democracy and autocracy. Popu¬ 
lar uprisings in Russia between 1905 and 1906 had 
compelled the tsar to grant a national legislature 
(Duma), without, however, seriously weakening the 
position of the government. The war disclosed how 
inefficient, weak, and even corrupt that government 
was. Late in 1916 the pro-German party at the court, 
including the tsar’s German wife, secretly began 
negotiations with the Central Powers for a separate 
peace. Patriotic Russians in the Duma passed a 
resolution that “dark forces” in high places were 
betraying the nation’s interests. Nevertheless, the 
intrigue went on, and the demoralization of Russia 
proceeded apace. 

A severe shortage of food in Petrograd brought 
matters to a crisis. Rioting broke out, and the troops 
were ordered to suppress it with bullet and bayonet 
in the usual pitiless fashion. But the old army, so 
long the prop of autocracy, languished in German 
prison camps or lay underground. The new army, 
mostly recruited from peasants and workingmen 


708 


The World War 




since the war, refused to fire on the people. Autoc¬ 
racy found itself helpless. The Duma then induced 
the tsar to sign the penciled memorandum which 
ended the Romanov dynasty after three hundred and 
four years of absolute power. 

The revolutionists set up a provisional government, 
headed by the executive committee of the Duma. 
Nearly all the members belonged to the party of Con¬ 
stitutional Democrats, representing the middle class, 
or bourgeoisie . Many liberal reforms were an¬ 
nounced: liberty of speech and of the press; the 
right of suffrage for both men and women; a general 
amnesty for all political offenders and Siberian 
exiles; and a constituent assembly to draw up a con¬ 
stitution for Russia. The United States and the 
western Allies promptly recognized the new govern¬ 
ment. * 

Socialists did not rest satisfied with these measures. 
They planned to give the revolution an economic 
rather than merely a political character. Through¬ 
out Russia they organized soviets, or councils repre¬ 
senting workingmen and soldiers. 1 he most impor¬ 
tant of these bodies was the Petrograd Council of 
Workingmen’s and Soldiers’ Delegates. The social¬ 
istic piopaganda for a general peace on the basis of 
no annexations and no indemnities” also made rapid 
headway with the army at the front. The troops 
began to elect their own officers, to fraternize with 
the enemy, and to desert in large numbers. Before 
long the I etiograd soviet, having won the support of 
the army, abolished the Duma as a stronghold of the 
bourgeoisie and replaced the Constitutional Demo¬ 
crats in the provisional government with socialists. 

The socialist leader w r as a young lawyer named 


The Russian Revolution 


709 


Alexander Kerensky. His impassioned oratory gave 
him great influence, and by July, 1917* he had 
become a virtual dictator. But Kerensky turned out 
to be neither a Cromwell nor a Napoleon, at a time 
when Russia required a combination of both for her 
salvation. A moderate socialist, he did not please the 
Constitutional Democrats, and he pleased the radical 
socialists still less. In November, 1917, a second 
revolution in Petrograd overthrew him and the pro¬ 
visional government which he headed. 

The two men who now seized the reins of power 
were Nicholas Lenin and Leon Trotsky. They 
. belonged to the Bolsheviki, an organization of radical 
socialists. Lenin was born of Russian parents and 
was brought up in the Orthodox faith. He received 
an education in economics and law at the University 
of Petrograd. His socialistic activities soon resulted 
in a three years’ exile to Siberia. After his release he 
went abroad and became prominent in the revolu¬ 
tionary circles of many European capitals. Trotsky, 
a Russian Jew, also suffered exile to Siberia as an 
undesirable agitator, the first time for four years, the 
second time for life. Having managed to escape, 
Trotsky went to western Europe and later to the 
United States. After the Russian Revolution both 
men returned to their native country and engaged in 
socialistic propaganda, with the results that have 
been seen. Lenin became premier and Trotsky for¬ 
eign minister (subsequently minister of war) in the 
new government. 

The Bolsheviki proposed to conclude an immedi¬ 
ate “democratic peace,” to confiscate landed estates, 
to nationalize factories and other agencies of pro¬ 
duction, and to transfer all authority to the soviets. 


7 io 


The World War 


Their flag was the red flag; their ultimate aim, a 
revolution by the working classes in all countries. 

Russia, meanwhile, began to dissolve into its sep¬ 
arate nationalities. Finns, Esthonians, Letts, Lithu¬ 
anians, Ukrainians, Cossacks, and Siberians declared 
their independence and set up governments of their 
own. To economic disorganization and political 
chaos were thus added civil wars. 

It was under these circumstances that Russia made 
peace with the Central Powers. The Bolsheviki 
agreed to pay an immense indemnity and to recognize 
the independence, under German auspices, of both 
Finland and the Ukraine. Poland, Lithuania, and 
Courland, conquered by the Germans in 1915, were 
surrendered to them, together with Livonia and 
Esthonia. This humiliating treaty deprived Russia 
of about a third of her population and a third of her 
territory, including the richest agricultural lands, the 
chief industrial districts, most of the iron mines and 
coal mines, and many of the principal railways of 
the former empire. Had the Brest-Litovsk Treaty 
endured, Germany would have been the real winner 
of the World War, whatever might have been the 
outcome of the conflict elsewhere in Europe. 

End of the War, 1918 

The satisfaction with which the western Allies 
greeted the overthrow of autocracy in Russia turned 
to dismay when that country, within a year, embraced 
radical socialism and withdrew from the war. The 
Treaty of Brest-Litovsk gave the Central Powers a 
free hand in the west. Great Britain, France, and 
ta y recognized this fact and prepared to remain on 
the defensive until the United States should be able 


End of the War 


7 ii 

to throw the full weight of its resources into the strug¬ 
gle. The Allies could afford to wait. To the Cen¬ 
tral Powers a prolongation of the war spelled ruin. 

Frightfulness” on the ocean had not broken the 
blockade or starved Great Britain or interrupted the 
stream of transports carrying American troops in 
ever larger numbers to Europe. Germany realized 
that her supreme effort for world dominion must be 
made in 1918, or never. “If the enemy does not want 
peace,” declared the kaiser, “then we must bring 
peace to the world by battering in with the iron fist 
and shining sword the doors of those who will not 
have peace.” 

Having gathered every available man and gun, 
Field Marshal Hindenburg and his associate, Gen¬ 
eral Ludendorff, on March 21, 1918, started a “drive” 
along the line from Arras to La Fere. Their plan 
was obvious: to split the Anglo-French forces at the 
point of juncture on the Oise River; to roll each 
army back, the British upon the Channel, the French 
upon Paris; and then to destroy each army separately. 
The battle which followed surpassed in intensity 
every previous engagement on the western front. By 
terrific mass attacks, the Germans regained in a few 
days all the ground so slowly and painfully won by 
the Allied offensives in 1916 and 1917. The British 
were pushed back twenty-five miles, bringing the 
enemy within artillery range of Amiens and its 
important railway connections. The critical condi¬ 
tion of affairs led the Allies to establish unity of 
action by putting their forces under the command of 
General Foch, an admirable strategist, who shared 
with Joffre the glory of the Marne battle. Before 
this step was taken, General Pershing had already 


712 


The World War 


offered the entire American army to be used wher¬ 
ever needed by the Allies. The Germans in April 
launched another “drive” to the north, between 
Arras and Ypres, against the British guarding the 
road to the Channel ports. Again the enemy drove 
a deep wedge into the British line. French rein¬ 
forcements arrived on the scene in time to check the 
German advance. A third “drive” at the end of 
May, between Soissons and Reims, brought the Ger¬ 
mans back once more to the Marne at Chateau- 
Thierry, only forty-three miles from Paris, but 
French and American troops again halted the 
advance. Renewed German efforts in June and July 
to pierce the Allied line and reach Paris were fruit¬ 
less. And now the tide turned. 

General Foch, always an advocate of the offensive 
in warfare, found himself by midsummer able to put 
his theories into practice. He now possessed the 
reinforcements sent by both Great Britain and Italy 
to help hold the long line from the sea to Switzer¬ 
land, together with more than a million American 
soldiers—-“Pershing’s crusaders”—whose mettle had 
been already tested and not found wanting in minor 
engagements at Cantigny, in the Belleau Woods, and 
at Chateau-Thierry. July 18, 1918, is a memorable 
date, for on that day the Allies began the series of 
rapid counter-strokes, perfectly coordinated, which 
foui months later brought the war on the western 
fiont to a victorious conclusion. How the French 
and Americans pinched the Germans out of the 
Marne salient; how the Americans, in their first 
independent operation, swept the enemy from the St.- 
Mihiel salient, south of Verdun, and started an 
advance into Geiman Lorraine which carried them 


End of the War 


7 T 3 


to Sedan; how the British, with French and Ameri¬ 
can assistance, broke the “Hindenburg Line”; how 
the Belgians, British, and French liberated Flanders 
—these are only the outstanding events of a period 
unsurpassed in interest and importance since the 
dawn of history. 

With disaster impending on the western front, 
Germany could no longer support her confederates 
in the other theaters of the war. Bulgaria was the 
first of the Central Powers to collapse. A vigorous 
offensive, begun during September by British, Greek, 
Serbian, French, and Italian troops in the Balkans, 
split the Bulgarian armies apart, thus opening the 
way for an immediate advance upon Sofia. Bulgaria 
then surrendered unconditionally. Shortly after¬ 
ward Tsar Ferdinand abdicated. 

Turkey, now isolated from Germany and Austria- 
Hungary, was the second of the Central Powers to 
collapse. The campaign against the Turks during 
September and October formed an unbroken succes¬ 
sion of victories. British forces, keeping close touch 
with their Arab allies, advanced northward from the 
neighborhood of Jerusalem. They soon took Damas¬ 
cus, the capital of Syria, and entered Aleppo, close 
to the railway between Constantinople and Bagdad. 
At the same time, the British in Mesopotamia cap¬ 
tured the Turkish army on the Tigris. Nothing 
remained for Turkey but to sign an armistice, which 
demobilized her troops and opened the road to Con¬ 
stantinople for the Allies. 

Simultaneously, Austria - Hungary collapsed. 
What may be called the second battle of the Piave 
began at the end of October, when General Diaz, 
the Italian commander, struck a sudden blow at the 


The World War 


7 ! 4 


Austrian armies and hurled them back along the 
whole front from the Alps to the sea. The battle 
soon assumed the proportions of a disaster perhaps 
unequaled in the annals of war. Within a single 
week the Italians chased the Austrians out of north¬ 
ern Italy, entered Trent and Trieste, and captured 
three hundred thousand prisoners and five thousand 
guns. Austria-Hungary then signed an armistice 
which, as in the cases of Bulgaria and Turkey, 
amounted to an unconditional surrender. 


The military overthrow of the Dual Monarchy 
quickly led to its disintegration. Separate states 
arose, representing the various nationalities formerly 
subject to the Hapsburgs. Emperor Charles I bowed 
to the inevitable and laid down the imperial crown 
which he had assumed in 1916 upon the death of 
Francis Joseph. Such was the end of the Hapsburg 

dynasty, rulei of Austria since the latter part of the 
thirteenth century. 

The Hohenzollerns also disappeared from the 
scene. As Germany during that fateful summer and 
autumn of 1918 began to taste the bitterness of defeat, 
the popular demand for peace and democratic gov¬ 
ernment became an open summons to the kaiser to 
abdicate. He long resisted, vainly making one con¬ 
cession after another, until the red flag had been 
hoisted over the German fleet at Kiel, and Berlin and 
other cities were in the hands of revolutionists. Then 
he abdicated, both as emperor and king, and fled 
to oil and. The other German crowns quickly 
ell, like overripe fruit. Germany soon found it¬ 
self a socialist republic, controlled by the Social 
Democrats. 


The armistice, which practically ended the war 


End of the War 


7i5 


was concluded by the Allies and the United States 
with the new German government. It formed a long 
document of thirty-five clauses, covering every aspect 
of the military situation and making it impossible for 
Germany to renew hostilities before the peace settle¬ 
ment. Germany agreed to return all prisoners of 
war; to surrender her submarines, the best part of her 
fleet, and immense numbers of cannon, machine guns, 
and airplanes; to evacuate Belgium, Luxemburg, 
France, and Alsace-Lorraine; and to allow the joint 
occupation by Allied and American troops of the 
Rhinelands, together with the principal crossings of 
the Rhine (Mainz, Coblenz, and Cologne) and 
bridgeheads at these points, to a depth of thirty 
kilometers, on the right bank of the river. A neutral 
zone was reserved between the occupied territory 
and the rest of Germany. The German government 
carried out these stringent terms under necessity. 

The sudden termination of hostilities found the 
greater part of Europe in confusion. The former 
empires of the Romanovs, Hapsburgs, and Hohen- 
zollerns promised to break up into a large number 
of independent states, with new governments and a 
new distribution of population. The problems for 
solution by the peace conference included, therefore, 
not only the necessary arrangements for indemnities 
in money and territory to be paid by the Central 
Powers and the disposition of Germany’s colonial 
possessions, but also the creation of a dozen or more 
sovereign countries with boundaries so drawn as to 
satisfy all legitimate national aspirations. The 
World War was to be followed by a World 
Settlement. 


CHAPTER XXI 

THE WORLD SETTLEMENT, 1919-1922 

The Peace Conference 

On January 1 8 , 1919, forty-eight years to a day 
from the proclamation of the German Empire in the 
palace of Louis XIV at Versailles, the Peace Con¬ 
ference assembled at Paris. It was a gathering which 
dwarfed into insignificance the Congress of Vienna or 
those still earlier congresses of Utrecht and West¬ 
phalia. They met to settle the affairs of Europe; 
this one met to settle the affairs of the world. 

The delegates to the conference represented all the 
Allied and Associated countries (except Montene¬ 
gro, Costa Rica, and Russia) and those which had 
severed diplomatic relations with the Central Powers 
(except Santo Domingo). Neutral states were ad¬ 
mitted to the conference only when matters affecting 
their particular interests came up for discussion. 
Enemy states were altogether excluded. Premier 
Clemenceau of France was unanimously chosen 
chairman of the conference. 

The direction of affairs naturally fell to the United 
States, Great Britain, France, Italy, and Japan. 

1 he two ranking delegates from each of these five 
powers constituted a Supreme Council to discuss and 
ormulate the business of the conference. As time 
went on, the difficulty of reconciling the many 
diverse interests and of reaching a settlement satis- 
actory to all made it necessary to reduce the original 

716 


The Peace Conference 


717 


council of ten members to one of five. Finally, Japan 
dropped from the inner circle, and the “Big Four,” 
namely, premiers Clemenceau, Lloyd George, and 
Orlando, and President Wilson, decided among 
themselves the most important questions. 

The drafting of the peace treaty with Germany 
proceeded steadily. Early in May it was delivered 
to the German delegates, who had been summoned to 
Versailles for the occasion. They tried to secure 
radical modification of its terms, but the Supreme 
Council refused to make any important concessions. 
Germany was given the choice between immediate 
acceptance of the treaty and renewal of the war. 
Germany chose to accept it, and her decision brought 
a relief to tense nerves everywhere. The historic 
ceremony of signing occurred on June 28 in the Hall 
of Mirrors at Versailles. 

The last article of the treaty provided that it should 
become effective when ratified by Germany on the 
one hand and by three of the principal Allied and 
Associated powers on the other hand. Germany rati¬ 
fied it early in July, and similar action was taken dur¬ 
ing the following months of 1919 by Great Britain, 
France, and Italy. The exchange of ratifications 
took place on January 10, 1920, in the Clock Hall of 
the French Foreign Ministry at Paris. From this 
day, therefore, the Allied powers and Germany were 
once more at peace. 

An Associated power still remained technically at 
war with Germany. The United States had not rati¬ 
fied the treaty owing to opposition in the Senate, 
which, according to the Constitution, must concur by 
a two-thirds vote in all treaties made by the Presi¬ 
dent Senatorial criticism was especially directed 


7.8 


The World Settlement 


against certain features of the League of Nations, as 
inserted in the treaty. The chief stumbling-block 
was Article X of the covenant, which declares that 
“the members of the league undertake to respect and 
preserve as against external aggression the territorial 
integrity and existing political independence of all 
members of the league.” Many senators believed 
that this article, by putting the military and naval 
forces of the United States at the disposal of the 
league, impaired the constitutional right of Congress 
to declare war, and might also result in foreign 
entanglements, which it has always been the Ameri¬ 
can policy to avoid. When the treaty came to a vote 
in the Senate, it failed to pass by the necessary two- 
thirds majority. The rejection of the treaty made the 
League of Nations in its existing form the chief issue 
in the presidential campaign of 1920. The Repub¬ 
licans opposed the league and the Democrats upheld 
it. The Republican victory, resulting in the election 
ot Senator Harding, was followed in the summer of 
1921 by the passage of a congressional resolution 
which declared the war of the United States with 
Germany at an end. This resolution was promptly 
signed by the President. Treaties of peace negoti¬ 
ated by the administration not only with Germany, 
but also with Austria and Hungary, were subse¬ 
quently ratified by the Senate. 

Peace with Germany 

The Versailles treaty made the following modifica¬ 
tions of Germany’s western frontier. First of all 
she restored Alsace and Lorraine to France. Ger¬ 
man misgovernment of these two provinces since 1871 
and the evident desire of most of their people to be 


VIEW OF PARIS FROM AN AIRPLANE 
Copyright by Wide World Photos. 







Ph — 







719 


Peace with Germany 

0 

reunited to France furnish sufficient justification for 
the action of the Peace Conference. The possession 
of Alsace-Lorraine, practically uninjured by the 
ravages of war, also helps to compensate France for 
the destruction wrought in her northern provinces. 
Second, Germany ceded to France absolutely the coal 
mines in the Saar Basin (north of Lorraine). This 
area, which was taken from France in 1815, is to be 
governed by the League of Nations until a plebiscite 
is held at the end of fifteen years to determine whe¬ 
ther the inhabitants prefer French or German sov¬ 
ereignty. Third, Germany agreed that northern 
Schleswig should return to Denmark in case a major¬ 
ity of the inhabitants voted for the change. By this 
action the Allies sought to repair the injury done by 
Prussia to Denmark in 1864. Fourth, Germany 
relinquished certain small districts on her western 
frontier to Belgium. 

The restoration of Poland to a place among the 
nations necessitated sweeping changes in Germany’s 
eastern frontier. She gave up much of Posen and 
West Prussia to the new Polish state. She also 
renounced all rights over Danzig, which, with its 
environs, becomes a free city under the protection of 
the League of Nations. This action assures to Poland 
uninterrupted access to the Baltic down the valley of 
the Vistula. These territorial losses must be borne 
by Prussia, which, in consequence, will no longer so 
completely overshadow the other German states. 
The Peace Conference thus undid much of Frederick 
the Great’s and Bismarck’s work for the exaltation 
of Prussia. 

Germany’s name on a far-flung colonial empire was 
blotted from the map. All her possessions overseas 


720 


I he World Settlement 


wcie taken from her. German East Africa went to 
Great Britain, and German Southwest Africa, to the 
Union of South Africa. Togo and the Cameroons 
were divided between France and Great Britain. 
These teintories will henceforth be administered 
under mandates from the League of Nations. The 
mandate for the German Pacific islands north of the 
equator is held by Japan, and that for the islands south 
of the equator by Australia. New Zealand, however, 
received the mandate for German Samoa. Germany 
also renounced, in favor of Japan, all her rights in 
Kiaochow and the province of Shantung. 

Responsibility for all damages, both on the land 
and at sea, was assumed by Germany. After much 
haggling Germany agreed in 1921 to pay over a 
series of years an indemnity of 132,000,000,000 gold 
marks (about $33 j 000 * 000 ,000), plus the amount of 
the Belgian debt to the Allies, but less sums already 
paid on the reparation account or subsequently to 
be credited to it. Allied occupation of the Rhine- 
lands will continue until reparation is completed. 

The military, naval, and air clauses of the treaty 
were intended to make Germany innocuous. They 
include the abolition of conscription, the reduction of 
her army to 100,000 men, and the destruction of the 
fortifications west of the Rhine, those in a thirty-mile 
zone on the east bank of the Rhine, those controlling 
the Baltic, and those on Helgoland. The German 
fleet was reduced to a few ships without submarines 
Airplanes, seaplanes, and dirigible balloons are not 
to be maintained for purposes of war. The treaty 
also prohibits the importation, exportation, and 
nearly all production of war material for the future, 
hese requirements have been strictly enforced. 


Peace with Austria 


721 


Peace with Austria, Hungary, Bulgaria, and 

Turkey 

The treaty with Austria was signed in September, 

1919, at St.-Germain, near Paris. The St.-Germain 
treaty did little more than record an accomplished 
fact, namely, the disintegration of the Dual Monar¬ 
chy. Austria ceded territory to Czecho-Slovakia and 
Jugoslavia and recognized their independence. 
Other parts of the Hapsburg realm were transferred 
to Italy (the Trentino and Adriatic possessions), to 
Poland (Galicia), and to Rumania (Bukowina). 
The new Austrian Republic thus became a small 
inland state, German in culture and chiefly German 
in population. The treaty also embodied stringent 
provisions relating to reparation and disarmament. 

The treaty with Hungary was signed in June, 

1920, at Versailles. It reduced Hungary to another 
small state inhabited almost entirely by Magyars. 
Czecho-Slovakia secured that part of northern Hun¬ 
gary containing a predominantly Slovak population; 
Rumania, the Rumanian districts of Transylvania; 
and Jugoslavia, the Slovenian and Croatian territo¬ 
ries of Hungary. The demands made upon Hungary 
for disarmament and reparation were substantially 
identical with those made upon Austria. 

The treaty with Bulgaria, as signed in November, 
1919, at Neuilly, slightly rectified the western fron¬ 
tier of that state in favor of Jugoslavia. The frontier 
with Rumania remains as before the war. 1 he most 
important boundary change is on the south, where 
Bulgaria relinquished part of Thrace to Greece. 
Bulgaria thus lost an outlet on the Aegean. She was 
also obliged to limit her army to 20,000 men, surren- 


722 


The World Settlement 


dei all warships and aircraft, and pay a total indem¬ 
nity of $445,000,000. 

The treaty with Turkey, as signed in August, 1920, 
at Sevres, restricted Ottoman territory in Europe to 
Constantinople and its environs. What remained of 
European Turkey was assigned to Greece. Accord- 
however, to the proposed revision of the Sevres 
treaty, as outlined in 1922, a large part of eastern 
Thiace will remain under the full sovereignty of the 
sultan. The shores of the Bosporus, the Sea of Mar¬ 
mora, and the Dardanelles were internationalized, 
so that the gates of the Black Sea might henceforth 
be free to all nations. 

Anatolia, the first seat of Ottoman power six cen¬ 
turies ago, continues to be a Turkish land. The city 
of Smyrna and the adjoining region were provision¬ 
ally assigned to Greece, but the Turkish national 
airnics in 1922 drove the Greek forces entirely out 
of Asia Minor. The Dodecanese (Sporades) Is¬ 
lands, which Italy occupied during the Turko-Italian 
war of 1911-1912, have been ceded by that country 
to Greece, with the exception of Rhodes. Both’ 
racially and by historic tradition the inhabitants of 
these islands are preponderantly Greek 

The French hold Syria under a mandate and 
have announced their intention to remain there per¬ 
manently. The interests of France in this part of the 
Levant are chiefly commercial, though there is a sen¬ 
timental tradition dating back to Napoleon and even 
to the crusades. 

T . Gr l at .? r L itain rec e!ved the mandate for Palestine. 
Ihe British government is pledged to develop the 
Holy Land as a national home for the Jews—a peo¬ 
ple without a country for nearly eighteen centuries 



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EUROPE 

after the Peace Conference at Paris, 

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New Nations in Central Europe 723 

The Arab kingdom of the Hejaz testifies to a new 
birth of Islam. The Young Turks, in their efforts to 
“Ottomanize” all the peoples of the Ottoman Empire, 
only succeeded in alienating the Arabs, who have 
never forgotten that from their land came the Pro¬ 
phet, that in it are the holy cities of Mecca and 
Medina, and that Arabic is the sacred language of the 
Koran. An Arab revolt against Turkey broke out 
in 1916, under the leadership of Husein, a descend¬ 
ant of Mohammed and official head of Mecca. He 
was promptly recognized as king of the Hejaz, or 
western Arabia, by the Entente Powers. 

A new state has also arisen in Mesopotamia (or 
Irak), under the rule of King Feisal, a son of Husein. 
Great Britain, who is made the mandatary for 
Mesopotamia, retains her predominant position in the 
country. British administration ought to redeem this 
region, naturally one of the most favored in the 
world, from the long blight to which it has been sub¬ 
jected by centuries of Turkish misgovernment. With 
scientific agriculture and irrigation it would soon 
become such a granary of the Near East as it was in 
ancient times. 

The New Nations in Central Europe 

It was altogether fitting that one result of the vic¬ 
torious struggle against the Central Powers should 
be the establishment of many new nations in both 
central and eastern Europe. Germany after her uni¬ 
fication and Austria-Hungary and Turkey through¬ 
out the nineteenth century systematically opposed 
nationalism as a force disruptive of their empires. 
Russia also upheld the same policy. Each of these 
countries contained numerous “submerged nationali- 


The World Settlement 


724 

tics governed against their will by those whom they 
considered aliens. The defeat of the Central Powers 
and the Russian Revolution offered, therefore, a 
unique opportunity to remake the European map in 

the name and in the interest of all its peoples, great 
and small. 

The South Slavs (Jugoslavs) in 1914 were distri¬ 
buted chiefly in the independent states of Serbia and 
Montenegro and in the following provinces of 
Austria-Hungary: Bosnia, and Herzegovina, Dalma¬ 
tia, Croatia-Slavonia, and Carniola. In order to 
establish the state of Jugoslavia, (officially known as 
the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes) 
both Serbia and Montenegro gave up their separate 
governments and united with the former Jugoslav 
provinces of Austria-Hungary. The first ruler of the 
new kingdom is Alexander I, crown prince of Serbia. 
Belgrade is the capital. A long and bitter dispute 
between Jugoslavia and Italy over the ownership of 
Fiume, an important port on the Adriatic, w r as settled 

by erecting Fiume into a free state, with a govern¬ 
ment of its own. 

The Albanian principality created by the powers 
in r9i3 disappeared completely soon after the open¬ 
ing of the World War. Albania now has a provi¬ 
sional government. The country is still very back¬ 
ward, lacking good highways, railroads, newspapers 
and post offices, while the antipathy between its 

Christian and Moslem inhabitants makes for dissen- 
sion. 

How unwillingly the Czechs and the Slovaks 
ought for the Dual Monarchy in the war is a matter 
of common knowledge. More than one hundred 
t ousand Czecho-Slovaks surrendered to the Rus- 


New Nations in Central Europe 725 

sians, and many of them promptly enlisted in the 
tsar s armies. After the Russian Revolution it was 
the Czecho-Slovaks in Siberia who for a time held 
that vast country against the Bolsheviki. Czecho¬ 
slovaks from Great Britain, France, Italy, and the 
United States also volunteered in large numbers'for 
service on the western front. There are few finer 
episodes in history than this spontaneous uprising of 
a whole nation. 

The collapse of the Dual Monarchy was followed 
almost immediately by the setting-up of a Czecho¬ 
slovak state. It embraces Bohemia, Moravia, and 
Austrian Silesia, which together formed an indepen¬ 
dent kingdom until its annexation by Austria in 1526, 
and also Slovakia. The latter country, once a part of 
Moravia, had been a Magyar dependency for cen¬ 
turies. Czecho-Slovakia is a republic with a consti¬ 
tution patterned after that of the United States. The 
first president is T. G. Masaryk, formerly a professor 
in the University of Prague. The new republic 
occupies a central position between the Baltic and the 
Adriatic. It is rich in natural resources, is advanced 
in agriculture, trade, and manufacturing, and is well 
provided with common schools. Czecho-Slovakia 
has every assurance of a prosperous and happy future. 

Hard, indeed, was the fate of the Poles during the 
World War. Those in Russian Poland had to fight 
against their brothers in Galicia, Posen, and West 
Prussia. Much of their country formed a fiercely 
contested battle-ground, and destruction, famine, and 
death followed everywhere in the wake of the con¬ 
tending armies. In 1914 the tsar, Nicholas II, prom¬ 
ised autonomy to all the Poles, both those in Russia 
and those to be liberated from Austrian and German 


7 26 


The World Settlement 


rule. Germany also proposed to set up a Polish state 
under German tutelage. It was reserved for the 
Peace Conference, however, to create the free and 
independent Poland of 1919. 

Restored Poland includes nearly all the territory 
taken from that country by Austria and Prussia in 
the partitions of the eighteenth century. The Allies 
have also given Poland mandatory powers for twenty- 
five years over eastern Galicia, the population of 
which is partly Polish and partly Ruthenian. Dis¬ 
putes about the remainder of Poland’s eastern boun¬ 
dary led to hard fighting between the Poles and the 
Bolsheviki during 1920. As the outcome of negotia¬ 
tions with the Soviet government, Poland finally 
acquired considerably more territory than had been 
allotted to her by the Peace Conference. Like her 
Czecho-Slovak neighbor, Poland is a republic. She 
has bound herself by a special treaty with the Allies 
to maintain free institutions, under the aeis of the 
League of Nations. 

The New Nations in Eastern Europe 

All the various peoples on the western border of the 

Russian Empire profited by the break-up of the tsar’s 

government to establish independent republics. 

Their boundaries, except in the case of Finland, have 

not yet been definitely determined. The republics 

are Finland, Esthonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and 
Ukrainia. 

The Swedes conquered Finland in the twelfth cen¬ 
tury and retained it until 1809. Finland, with the 
Aland Islands, then entered the Russian Empire as a 
semi-independent grand duchy. The Finnish parlia¬ 
ment in 1917 declared for complete separation from 


New Nations in Eastern Europe 727 

Russia. For the next two years Finland had to con¬ 
tend with both the Bolsheviki and the Germans, but 
Germany’s collapse restored liberty to the country. 
It was soon recognized as an. independent republic 
by the principal Allied powers. 

The provisional government of Russia in 1917 
granted Esthonia a parliament, or Diet, to be elected 
by universal suffrage. After the triumph of the 
Bolsheviki in Russia, the Diet proclaimed Esthonian 
independence. The Germans subsecjuently occupied 
the country, but their dream of annexing it went the 
way of the other Pan-German schemes. Esthonia 
has signed a peace treaty with the Soviet government, 
by which Russia abdicates all rights over her former 
Baltic possession. 

The Letts, who call themselves Latvis, dwell for 
the most part in the former Russian provinces of 
Courland and Livonia, around the Gulf of Riga. 
They, too, have had to fight for freedom against both 
German armies and the Bolsheviki, before securing 
national existence. 

The grand duchy of Lithuania, which united with 
Poland in 1569, became a part of the Russian Empire 
after the partitions of Poland in the eighteenth cen¬ 
tury. The tsar’s government made every effort to 
“Russify” the inhabitants, extinguish their sense of 
nationality, and force upon them the Orthodox 
Church. Such was the situation when the World 
War broke out. The Germans overran Lithuania 
during their great offensive of 1915, only to evacuate 
it three years later after the signing of the armistice. 
Lithuania then proclaimed itself an independent 
republic. 

The Ukrainians (Little Russians, Ruthenians) 


728 


The World Settlement 


number about 30,000,000, including many Cossacks. 
Their country fell under the sway of Poland-Lithu- 
ania toward the close of the Middle Ages and did 
not become a part of the tsar’s dominions until the 
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. With its broad, 
fertile plains devoted to agriculture and stock raising 
and its rich deposits of coal and minerals, Ukrainia 
bids fair to occupy an important place in Europe. 
The present Bolshevist government is allied with and 
subservient to Russia. 

The student will recall that during the nineteenth 
century Russia widened her boundaries by the annex¬ 
ation of districts on both sides of the Caucasus Moun¬ 
tains. The Caucasian peoples have set up three re¬ 
publics, namely, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Armenia. 
Nowhere else in the world have so many different 
tribes, languages, and religions been gathered 
together. At least fifty different dialects are spoken 
in this region. Most of the Caucasian peoples are 
Mohammedans, but the Georgians belong to the 
Greek Church and the Armenians have a national 
Church of their own. Azerbaijan, Georgia, and 
Armenia are now practically dependencies of 

Russia and are under Soviet Bolshevist govern¬ 
ments. 

Democracy and Socialism 

When the World War began, two-thirds of Europe 
was under autocratic rule. Germany, which refused 
to accept either the principles or the practice of 
democracy, found natural support in Austria-Hun¬ 
gary, Bulgaria, and Turkey. Autocratic Russia, it 
is true, fought on the side of the Allies, but the Rus¬ 
sian Revolution piomised to enroll that country 


Democracy and Socialism 


729 


among liberal states. The triumph of the Central 
Powers would not only have dashed the hopes of all 
the submerged nationalities' 1 in Europe; it would 
have imperiled the existence of popular government 
everywhere. Germany and her satellites in 1914 
flung down a challenge to the liberties of mankind. 

All know how that challenge was met. Two 
emperors, those of Germany and Austria; two tsars, 
those of Russia and Bulgaria; six kings, those of 
Prussia, Saxony, Bavaria, Wurtemberg, Hungary, 
and Greece, and a crowd of princes, dukes, and grand 
dukes renounced their hereditary rights and sought 
refuge either in obscurity or in exile. More than a 
score of sovereigns dethroned represents part of the 
balance sheet of the war. 

With the emperors, kings, princes, dukes, and 
grand dukes went the whole theory of absolutism and 
divine right. Monarchy itself disappeared in most 
of central and eastern Europe, only the five Balkan 
states, Rumania, Bulgaria, Jugoslavia, Greece, and 
Turkey retaining a semblance of one-man rule. The 
war revealed, clearly enough, what ruin might be 
caused by the vanity, selfishness, and ambition of a 
few persons. They had long menaced the peace and 
happiness of the world. At last, the world is done 
with them. 

It was quite natural that the socialists should have 
assumed the leadership of the revolutionary move¬ 
ments in many European countries. There are two 
types of socialism, however. Moderate socialists rely 
on the ballot to abolish capitalism and introduce state 
ownership of the means of production: they are 
democrats in their political thinking and accept the 
democratic principle of majority rule. Radical or 


730 


The World Settlement 


extreme socialists advocate violent means of over¬ 
throwing the capitalistic middle class, the hated 
bourgeoisie, in order to set up a dictatorship of the 
proletariat. The contrast between the two socialistic 
parties is well marked in Germany, where the prin¬ 
ciples of Karl Marx and his followers first became 
popular among workingmen. 

The Social Democrats before the war were the 
chief opponents of militarism and autocracy in Ger¬ 
many, and even in 1914 a bold minority of them 
resisted the war fever then sweeping over the country. 
The events of 1918 strengthened their hands; both 
the army and the navy became saturated with the 
revolutionary spirit; and a few days before the sign¬ 
ing of the armistice in November the uprising 
occurred which sent the Hohenzollerns into exile and 
established a socialistic government, with Friedrich 
Ebert at its head. The moderate socialists in control 
of affairs immediately encountered the opposition of 
the radicals, who planned to deprive the bourgeoisie 
of all power and establish a proletarian regime. 
There were bitter conflicts between the radicals and 
the republican troops. Law and order finally 
triumphed, after much bloodshed. 

Ebert and his associates gave Germany a perma¬ 
nent government through a national assembly which 
met at Weimar in 1919 and drafted a constitution. 
This was speedily ratified by a popular vote. The 
new Germany is essentially a federative republic, 
though still described by the old name Reich, or 
Empiie. Foreign affairs, colonies, immigration and 
emigration, military organization, coinage, tariffs, 
and posts, telegraphs, and telephones are reserved to 
the nation as a whole. The confederated states may 


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Democracy and Socialism 


73i 


legislate on many other matters, subject, however, to 
the prior right of legislation by the nation. Every 
state must have a republican form of government, 
with representatives chosen in secret ballot by all 
German citizens, both men and women. 

The constitution retains certain time-honored forms 
and features of the old government. The Imperial 
Council (Reichsrat), which replaces the Bundesrat, 
consists of delegates from the confederated states. 
Each state is to have at least one vote, and in the case 
of the larger states one vote will be accorded to every 
million inhabitants. No state, however, can have 
more than two-fifths of all the votes in the Reichsrat. 
This clause of the constitution should prevent the 
control of the council by Prussia. Long impotent 
under the old imperial regime, the Reichstag now 
becomes the supreme law-making body. The Reichs¬ 
rat may, indeed, refuse assent to a measure passed by 
the Reichstag, but its veto can be overridden by a two- 
thirds vote of the latter assembly. 

The president of Germany is to be elected by the 
entire people for a term of seven years. He is eligible 
to reelection. The president makes treaties, selects 
public officials, commands the military forces, and 
appoints and dismisses the chancellor, together with 
other members of the ministry. The constitutional 
provision requiring that the chancellor and his asso¬ 
ciates shall hold office only as long as they retain the 
confidence of the Reichstag gives to Germany sub¬ 
stantially cabinet government. 

Austria also became a republic. A National 
Assembly, in which the socialists had the largest 
representation, met in 1919 an ^ framed a liberal con¬ 
stitution. The assembly declared for the union of 


732 


The World Settlement 


Austria with Germany. The Allies have not as yet 
consented to this long-delayed unification of the Ger¬ 
man-speaking peoples of central Europe. One of the 
clauses of the St.-Germain treaty makes such action 
dependent upon the approval of the council of the 
League of Nations. 

The Hungarian People’s Republic came into exist¬ 
ence shortly after the signing of the armistice. It 
endured only a few months and then gave way to a 
Soviet government, which asserted the dictatorship 
of the proletariat. This experiment in Bolshevism 
did not last long, for an opposition government, as¬ 
sisted by the Rumanian army, soon swept away the 
Soviet. Hungary has been proclaimed a monarchy, 
with Admiral von Horthy as Regent. The Allies 

will not permit the restoration of the Hapsburg 
family in Hungary. 

The outstanding fact as respects Russia since 
November, 1917, has been the ability of the Bolshe- 
viki to retain power. Their rule is essentially a class 
dictatorship, since the urban proletariat forms only 
about a tenth of Russia’s population. The Bolsheviki 
are perfectly consistent, therefore, in opposing the 
convocation of a national assembly to frame a con¬ 
stitution acceptable to the great majority of Russians. 

he Bolsheviki, for a time, encountered serious 
opposition on the part of Russian liberals and re¬ 
actionaries, who joined forces to overthrow the 

t , . . . ^ movement 

found its principal support in South Russia and 

Siberia. During 1919-1920 the “Red” armies won 

victories on every front and reconquered most of 

European Russia, Siberia, and Russian Central Asia. 

1 he Bolshevist triumph seems to be due chiefly to the 


Economic Reconstruction 733 

fact that the anti-Bolshevists repeated the mistake of 
the emigres during the French Revolution and called 
in foreign assistance from Great Britain, France, 
Japan, and the United States. This action had the 
effect of arousing the national sentiment of the Rus¬ 
sian people, who were now ready to follow Lenin and 
Trotsky in repelling the invaders of their country. 

The western Allies have now withdrawn from both 
European and Asiatic Russia, though Japan still 
keeps some forces in the Russian province of Sak¬ 
halin. While adopting a policy of non-intervention 
in Russian affairs, the Allies refuse to recognize the 
Soviet government until assured that the Bolsheviki 
have dropped the methods of barbarism for the 
methods of civilization. Trading relations, however, 
may soon be reestablished. Russia, whose economic 
life has been so disrupted by the war and by the 
Bolsheviki, requires western capital to revive its 
drooping industries. The rest of Europe likewise 
needs to draw upon the rich natural resources of 
Russia for economic reconstruction after the war. 

Economic Reconstruction 

The war cast its shadow over almost the entire 
globe. Nothing like it had ever happened before. 
Twenty-eight nations, with their colonial dependen¬ 
cies, took up arms, while five Latin-American coun¬ 
tries severed diplomatic relations with Germany. 
Only seventeen nations remained neutral. Even 
neutrals, however, could not escape the economic 
dislocations accompanying a war of such magnitude. 

No exact statement is possible of the number of 
lives lost in battle action and as a result of wounds, 
accidents, or disease. Premier Clemenceau, in one 


734 


The World Settlement 


of the Allied notes to Germany before she signed the 
treaty, declared that “not less than seven million 
dead lie buried in Europe, while more than twenty 
million others carry upon them the evidence of 


wounds and sufferings.” The Allied note to Holland, 
demanding the surrender of the kaiser as the instiga¬ 
tor of the war, estimated the number of killed at ten 
millions, with three times as many more mutilated or 
shattered in health. These figures do not include 
either the millions of civilians, young and old, who 
perished as the result of pestilence and famine in 
those parts of Europe occupied by the Central Pow¬ 
ers, or the slaughtered Armenians. Not more than 
five million lives were lost in all the wars from the 
time of the Prench Revolution to 1914. 

An\ figures foi the money cost of the struggle must 
be regarded as merely approximate. Experts of the 
American War Department place the direct expendi¬ 
ture of the belligerent nations at $197,000,000,000, an 
amount which probably exceeds the total wealth of 
the United States. This estimate leaves out all the 
devastation wrought on the western front and in other 
t eaters of the war, all property destroyed at sea, the 
1 epreciation of capital, and the loss of production due 
to the employment of the world’s workers in military 
activities. At least $100,000,000,000 must be added 
for these and other items. The grand total would 
us reach about $300,000,000,000, exclusive of the 
expenditures and losses of neutral nations. All the 
wars from the time of the French Revolution to 1914 
cost not more than $23,000,000,000. 

The war was financed t0 some exten( . by increased 

taxation, especially in Great Britain and the United 
States, but chiefly by borrowing. The nations, in the 


Economic Reconstruction 


735 


first place, have issued vast quantities of paper money. 
Such forced loans are easily made on the Continent, 
where the governments control the banks and possess 
a monopoly of note issue. The enormous sums thus 
put into circulation are a primary cause of the rise 
of prices abroad, increasing several times over the 
cost of labor and commodities as measured in terms 
of the money unit. One of the financial problems 
confronting Europe is the speedy withdrawal of a 
large part of these notes from circulation. In the 
second place, the nations have sold their bonds, or 
promises to pay, to all who would buy them. The 
amounts raised were far greater than had been sup¬ 
posed possible. The people bought the bonds out of 
their savings, for the war taught lessons of thrift to 
almost every one and made it a patriotic duty for the 
citizen to save that his country might have more to 
spend. The bonds will be mostly funded into long¬ 
time obligations running many years before maturity. 

The burdens which our own and future generations 
must carry are shown by the gigantic public debts 
of the principal belligerents. In 1919 Great Britain 
owed $40,000,000,000; France, $35,000,000,000; 
Italy, $10,000,000,000; and the United States $26,- 
000,000,000. Germany at the end of 1918 owed $40,- 
000,000,000 and Austria-Hungary, $25,000,000,000. 
What Russia owes and what she intends to repay are 
alike incalculable at the present time. 

The general economic situation has been summed 
up by the Supreme Council in a memorandum as 
follows: “The process of recovery of Europe must 
necessarily be a slow one, which cannot be expedited 
by short cuts of any description. It can be most seri¬ 
ously hampered by the dislocation of production, by 


73^ The World Settlement 

strikes, lockouts, and interruption of work of all 
kinds. The civilization of Europe has indeed been 
shaken and set back, but it is far from being irre¬ 
trievably ruined by the tremendous struggle through 
which she has passed. The restoration of her vitality 
now depends on the wholehearted cooperation of all 
her children, who have it in their own power to delay 
or accelerate the process of reconstruction.” 

The League of Nations 

The idea of maintaining peace by international 
agreements is not new. Several great wars have been 
followed by projects for the prevention of future 
conflicts. After the religious struggles of the six¬ 
teenth century in France came the “Grand Design” 
of Henry IV. The development of this plan for a 
European Confederation or Christian Republic was 
frustrated by the assassination of the French king. 
Neai the close of the seventeenth century, William 
Penn wrote a prophetic Essay Towards the Present * 
and Future Peace of Europe. Penn argued that an 
international Diet or Parliament, obeying “the same 
rules of justice and peace by which parents and mas¬ 
ters govern their families, magistrates their cities, 
estates their republics, and princes and kings their 
principalities and kingdoms,” could abolish warfare 
between the nations. The French revolutionary wars 
produced Immanuel Kant’s Towards Perpetual 
Peace. In this work the great German philosopher 
declared that perpetual peace might be secured by 
an international union of states and that such a union 

would become feasible when autocracies gave way to 
democracies. 

It was the autocrats, however, who made the first 


League of Nations 


737 


attempt at a League of Nations. In 1815, after 
Europe had been exhausted by the struggle against 
Napoleon, the tsar, Alexander I, joined with Francis 
I of Austria and Frederick William III of Prussia 
in a so-called Holy Alliance. The three rulers 
pledged themselves “in the name of the Most Holy 
and Indivisible Trinity” to take for their sole guide 
henceforth the precepts of justice, Christian charity, 
and peace. They further promised to remain united 

by the bonds of a true and indivisible fraternity,” 
and “on all occasions and in all places” to lend each 
other aid and assistance. Most of the other European 
sovereigns later signed this pledge, conspicuous 
exceptions being the Pope, the Sultan, and George 
IV, the British Prince Regent. Though a praise¬ 
worthy attempt to apply much-needed principles of 
morality to international relations, the Holy Alliance 
never had any real importance. Most statesmen 
agreed with Metternich’s characterization of it as a 
“loud-sounding nothing.” It soon faded into obli¬ 
vion, being replaced by the far more practical Con- 
cert of Europe. 

The five great powers, Great Britain, France, Prus¬ 
sia, Austria, and Russia, who formed the Concert, 
did not keep peace throughout the nineteenth century. 
Their conflicting interests and especially their nation¬ 
alistic aspirations more than once led to hostilities 
between them. Nevertheless, the idea of a Concert 
persisted, and from time to time the great powers 
imposed their will upon the whole of Europe. They 
neutralized Switzerland in 1815 and Belgium in 
1839. At the Congress of Paris in 1856, which con¬ 
cluded the Crimean War, they signed the Declaration 
of Paris providing rules for the conduct of maritime 


73 § 


The World Settlement 


warfare. By the Geneva Convention in 1864 they 
undertook to ameliorate warfare on land and organ¬ 
ized the International Red Cross, with branches in 
every civilized country. In 1878 the great powers, 
now including Great Britain, France, Germany, Aus¬ 
tria-Hungary, Italy, and Russia, met in the Congress 
of Berlin for the settlement of the Eastern Question. 
Nor was the Concert confined to Europe. In organ¬ 
ized the Congo Free State under international guar¬ 
antees, neutralized the Suez Canal, cooperated with 
Japan and the United States to suppress the Chinese 
“Boxers,” and held the Algeciras Conference to deal 
with the Moroccan problem. 

The nations also began to resort increasingly to 
arbitration as a means of adjusting differences 
between them. Great Britain and the United States, 
for instance, arbitrated the Alabama claims after the 
Civil War and in the same way ended a boundary 
dispute between British Guiana and Venezuela, 
which threatened for a time to involve the two great 
English-speaking peoples in fratricidal strife. Dur¬ 
ing the nineteenth century over two hundred awards 
were made by arbitral courts, and every one was 
executed. After 1900 many leading countries con¬ 
cluded treaties with each other, pledging themselves 
to submit to arbitration all controversies except those 
affecting national honor or vital interests (such as 
independence). 

International arbitration received a great impetus 
at the two Hague conferences of 1899 and 1907. The 
assembled powers could not agree to limit armaments, 
but besides revising the laws of war they set up a 
permanent court of arbitration, to which the nations 
might resort. Though without authority to enforce 


739 


League of Nations 


its decrees, the Hague Tribunal did settle a number 
of controversies which in earlier days might have led 
to war. It thus marked a distinct advance toward 
international peace. 

Then came the World War. In her lust for con¬ 
quest, Germany abruptly withdrew from the Euro¬ 
pean Concert, rejected every proposal for arbitration 
or mediation, and, after hostilities began, proceeded 
to violate her treaty obligations and all the recognized 
usages of warfare, both by land and sea. The Allies, 
in consequence, became the defenders of international 
law, as well as the champions of nationality and of 
democracy. Their enormous sacrifices during the 
struggle promised to be in vain, unless some means 
could be found to preserve the sanctity of treaties 
and prevent future aggressive wars. An international 
league began to seem, not a utopian scheme, but 
rather a practical necessity for the peace and security 
of mankind. Such thoughts as these were repeatedly 
expressed by responsible statesmen among the Allies, 
especially by Mr. Lloyd George and President Wil¬ 
son. 

As soon as the Peace Conference opened at Paris, 
a committee representing the Allied and Associated 
governments began work on the various proposals 
which had been put forward from time to time for an 
international league. The first draft of a constitution 
was modified in various respects, as a result of world¬ 
wide discussion, and the amended document was then 
inserted in the peace treaty with Germany. The 
signing of that treaty by the Allied and Associated 
governments, and its subsequent ratification set up the 
League of Nations in active operation. The first 
meeting of the council of the league took place Janu- 


74° The World Settlement 

ary 16, 1920, at Paris, and the first meeting of the 
assembly, on November 15, 1920, at Geneva. 

The constitution, or covenant, of the League of 
Nations, is a short, simple, and dignified document. 
The objects of the organization are thus stated in the 
preamble: “The High Contracting Parties, in order 
to promote inteinational cooperation and to achieve 
international peace and security, by the acceptance of 
obligations not to resort to war, by the prescription of 
°P en > j us b an d honorable relations between nations, 
by the firm establishment of the understandings of 
international law as the actual rule of conduct among 
governments, and by the maintenance of justice and 
a scrupulous respect for all treaty obligations in the 
dealings of organized peoples with one another, agree 
to this Covenant of the League of Nations.” 

The League of Nations consists of an assembly in 
which each member has one vote; a council, made up 
of representatives of the principal Allied powers, 
together with representatives of four other members 
of the league; and a permanent secretariat at Geneva, 
Switzerland. World peace is to be promoted by an 
agreement between the nations to disarm to the lowest 
point consistent with national safety. The members 
of the league agree, furthermore, to arbitrate any 
dispute which cannot be settled satisfactorily by 
diplomacy and to carry out in good faith any award 
that may be rendered. Should a member resort to 
war in disregard of its obligations, it shall, ipso facto , 
be deemed to have committed an act of aggression, 
toward all other members, who thereupon shall pro¬ 
ceed to sever trade or financial relations with it and, 
if necessary, to use armed force against it. A World 
Court, consisting of eleven eminent jurists of differ- 


Disarmament Conference 


74i 


ent countries and representing diverse races, lan¬ 
guages, nationalities, and legal codes, was set up in 
1921 to facilitate the peaceful settlement of inter¬ 
national disputes and gradually by its decisions to 
establish an international system of justice. 

Forty-two nations were represented by delegates 
at the first meeting of the assembly of the league in 
1920. Six other nations, including Austria and Bul¬ 
garia, were admitted to the league at this time, and 
still other nations (Latvia, Lithuania, and Esthonia), 
at the second meeting of the assembly in 1921. For 
the future, any self-governing state, dominion, or 
colony may be enrolled by a two-thirds vote of the 
members, provided it promises faithfully to observe 
international obligations. Germany, Turkey, Russia, 
Hungary, Egypt, Ecuador, Mexico, and the United 
States remain outside the League of Nations. 

The Disarmament Conference 

A long step toward world peace and the formation 
of a world society was taken at the Disarmament 
Conference. In response to President Harding’s 
invitation, delegates of nine nations (the United 
States, Great Britain, France, Italy, Belgium, Hol¬ 
land, Portugal, Japan, and China) met at Washing¬ 
ton in November, 1921, to deal with limitation of 
armaments and, as connected therewith, the policy of 
the powers in the Far East. The feeling was general 
that no permanent arrangements for ensuring disar¬ 
mament could be made unless and until the various 
Pacific problems had been solved to the satisfaction 
of all parties concerned. The conference continued 
in session until February, 1922. Its deliberations 
were so successful that the assembled powers agreed 


74 2 The World Settlement 

to a similar meeting eight years hence, and also to 
frequent consultation, through commissions and other 
international bodies, on matters affecting their com¬ 
mon interests. The chief results of the conference 
may be summarized as follows; 

The delegates adopted the proposal of Secretary 
Hughes for a limitation of navies. The five prin¬ 
cipal naval powers agreed to scrap or convert to 
peaceful use sixty-eight capital ships, and so limit 
future construction that after a ten-year building hol¬ 
iday Great Britain and the United States shall each 
have 525,000 tons, Japan 60 per cent of this tonnage, 
and France and Italy a still smaller per cent. The 
size of capital ships is also restricted, together with 
that of their guns. This agreement obviously puts 
an end, at least for a decade, to expensive and war¬ 
breeding competition in naval armaments. It fur¬ 
ther means that Great Britain surrenders the mastery 
of the seas, which has been hers for over two hundred 
years. She gives up maritime supremacy, not by 
compulsion, but voluntarily, in the interest of a new 
order now dawning on the world. 

The naval treaty contains an article by which the 
powers pledge themselves not to strengthen or 
enlarge the fortifications of their possessions in the 
Pacific. The Hawaiian Islands and the Japanese 
Archipelago—Japan proper—do not fall within the 
provisions of this article. 

The five powers signing the naval treaty are also 
signatories to a treaty by which they agree not to use 
submarines as commerce destroyers, in all cases to 
observe the ordinary rules of visit and search of mer¬ 
chantmen, and to treat as a pirate any submarine 
commander who violates existing international law 


Disarmament Conference 743 

on the high seas. As between themselves, the five 
powers further outlaw the use of poison gas 
altogether. 

A very important outcome of the conference was 
the Four-Power Treaty, arranged between the 
United States, Japan, Great Britain, and France. It 
replaces the Anglo-Japanese Alliance, which expired 
in 1921. The powers agree to respect one another’s 
rights relating to their insular possessions in the 
Pacific. Article II provides that if the said rights are 
threatened by the aggressive action of any other 
power, the signatories “shall communicate with one 
another fully and frankly, in order to arrive at an 
understanding as to the most efficient measures to be 
taken, jointly or severally, to meet the exigencies of 
the particular situation.” The period of the treaty 
is limited to ten years, but it will remain in force 
thereafter, subject to the right of any of the contract¬ 
ing parties to terminate it upon twelve months’ 
notice. The principal islands of Japan are not in¬ 
cluded within the scope of the treaty, but it does 
apply to Australia, New Zealand, the Philippines, 
and the Hawaiian Islands. Taken in connection with 
the agreements respecting naval armaments and 
Pacific fortifications, the Four-Power Treaty should 
materially lessen the danger of future conflicts in the 
Far East. 

All the powers at the conference signed a Far 
Eastern Treaty, binding each one to respect the terri¬ 
torial integrity and sovereign rights of China in all 
future dealings with that country. Japan made a 
separate treaty with China, by which Shantung will 
be restored to Chinese control. Japan’s action was 
supplemented by the promise of Great Britain to give 


744 I he World Settlement 

up Weihaiwei, thus completing the restoration to 
China of her most ancient province. These and other 
agreements should end the exploitation of Chinese 
territory and resources for the benefit of outsiders. 
They signify, in short, the adoption by foreign 
nations of a policy of “China for the Chinese.” 

This bare outline of the work of the Disarmament 
Conference must suffice to indicate what it has accom¬ 
plished for the future peace of the world. The 
treaties signed at Washington, if ratified by the res¬ 
pective governments and faithfully executed by them, 
promise to inaugurate a new era of international 
comity and good will. In President Harding’s 
words, “the torches of understanding .have been 

lighted, and they ought to glow and encircle the 
globe.” 


TABLE OF EVENTS AND DATES 


i 


B. C. 

776 First i ecorded celebration of the Olympian games. Greek 
chronology begins to be precise from this date. 

753 (?) Rome founded. Traditional date. 

606 Destruction of Nineveh. End of the Assyrian Empire, 
which had long dominated the Near East. 

586-539 Captivity of the Hebrews in Babylonia. 

560 (?)-480 (?) Gautama Buddha. 

551 (?)-479 Confucius. 

509 (?) Roman Republic established. Traditional date. 

490 Marathon, 480 Salamis, and 479 Platcea and Mycale. The 
four battles which preserved Greece from Persian domi¬ 
nation and European culture from submergence in that 
of Asia. 

451-450 Laws of the Tivelve Tables published. The basis of all 
later Roman law. 

390 (?) Rome captured by the Gauls. 

338 Battle of Clueronea. The triumph of the Macedonian 
Kingdom over the disunited city-states of Greece. 

333 Issus and 331 Arbela. The two battles which overthrew the 
Persian Empire and established Macedonian supremacy 
throughout the Near East. 

214 Great Wall of China begun. 

202 Battle of Zama. Ended the Second Punic War and left 
Rome without a rival in the western Mediterranean. 

146 Carthage and Corinth destroyed by the Romans. 

58-50 Conquest of Gaul by Julius Ccesar. Opened up much of 
western Europe to Graeco-Roman civilization. 

745 


746 Table of Events and Dates 


i 


31 Battle of Actium. Ended civil war between Antony and 
Octavian, leaving the latter supreme in the Roman 
state. 

4 (?) Birth of Christ. 

A. D. 

70 Jerusalem captured and destroyed by the Ro?nans. 

135 Dispersion of the Jews. 

212 Edict of Caracalla. Extended Roman citizenship to all 
free-born men in the Roman Empire. 

284 Reorganization of the Roman Empire by Diocletian. The 
imperial system henceforth became an undisguised abso¬ 
lutism of the Oriental type. 

313 Edict of Milan. Granted general toleration and placed 
• Christianity on a legal equality with the other religions 
of the Roman world. 

325 Council of Nicwa. Framed the Nicene Creed, which is 
still the accepted summary of Christian doctrine in 
Roman Catholic, Greek, and most Protestant churches. 

330 Constantinople (New Rome) made the capital of the Roman 
Empire. 

451 Battle of Chalons. Saved western Europe from being con¬ 
quered by the still barbarous Huns. 

476 Deposition of Ro??mlus Augustulus. Extinction of the line 
of Roman emperors in the West. 

496 Clovis adopted Catholic Christianity. Paved the way for 
intimate relations between the Franks and the Papacy. 

529 (?) Rule of St. Benedict. Established the form of monasti- 
cism which ultimately prevailed everywhere in western 
Europe. 

529-534 Codification of Roman law. The Corpus Juris Civilis 
formed perhaps the most important contribution of 
Rome to civilization. 

622 The Hegira (Flight) of Mohammed from Mecca to 

Medina. Marks the beginning of the Mohammedan 
era. 


Table of Events and Dates 


747 


732 Battle of Tours . The victory of the Franks under Charles 
Martel stemmed the farther advance of the Moslems 
into western Europe. 

800 Charlemagne crowned Emperor of the Romans. Formation 
of the so-called Holy Roman Empire. 

843 Treaty of Verdun and 870 Treaty of Alersen. Marked 
important stages in the dissolution of Charlemagne’s 
dominions. 

962 Otto I , the Great, crowned Roman Emperor. Revival of 
the so-called Holy Roman Empire. 

982 Greenland discovered by the Northmen. 

988 Christianity introduced into Russia. The Russian Slavs 
henceforth came under the influence of the Greek Church 
and Byzantine civilization. 

1054 Final rupture of the Greek and Roman Churches. Des¬ 
troyed the religious unity of European Christendom. 

1066 Battle of Hastings. Resulted in the Norman Conquest of 
England. 

1095 Council of Clermont. > Beginning of the crusades. 

1122 Concordat of Worms. A compromise arrangement between 
the Papacy and the Holy Roman Empire. 

1206-1227 Conquests of Jenghiz Khan. Brought a large part 
of Asia and eastern Europe under Mongol sway. 

1215 Magna Carta. Defined the rights of Englishmen and 
inspired their later struggles for political liberty. 

1271-1295 Travels of Marco Polo. Polo’s narrative of his 
travels greatly increased the interest of Europeans in the 

Far East. 

1295 "Model Parliament ” of Edward I. A regularly elected 

Parliament, which for the first time included repiesenta- 
tives of all classes of the English people. 

1309-1377 “Babylonian Captivity*' of the Papacy. The re¬ 
moval of the popes to Avignon weakened their political 

authority. 


74& Table of Events and Dates 


1348-1349 Black Death in Europe. Hastened the decline of 
serfdom and the emancipation of the peasantry. 

1378-1417 The “Great Schism.” Weakened the spiritual su¬ 
premacy of the popes over western Christendom. 

1396 Greek first taught at Florence, Italy. The revival of 
Greek studies in western Europe formed an important 
aspect of the Renaissance movement. 

1453 Constantinople captured hy the Ottoman Turks. End of 
the Byzantine Empire and beginning of the Eastern 
Question. 

1456 First book printed at Gutenberg s press in Mainz, Ger¬ 
many. 

1487 Cape of Good Hope rounded by Diaz. The final step in 
the Portuguese exploration of the western coast of 
Africa. 

1492 Discovery of America by Columbus. 

1498 India reached by J asco da Gama. The Portuguese thus 
opened up an ocean passage from Europe round Africa 
to the Far East. 

1517 Fathers Finety-five I heses posted. Beginning of the 
Protestant Reformation in Germany. 

1519-1522 Magellan's circumnavigation of the globe. 

1543 Publication of Copernicus's treatise “On the Revolutions 
°f Celestial Orbits. Resulted in the adoption of an 
entnely new system of astronomy, by which man's out¬ 
look on the universe has been fundamentally changed. 

lt)4s Silver Mines of Potosi in Bolivia discovered. The enor¬ 
mous output of silver from these mines greatly enlarged 
the supply of money in western Europe, thus stimulating 
industrial and commercial enterprise. 

1545-156j Council of Trent. An important agency in the 
Catholic Counter Reformation. 

1577-1580 Drake's voyage around the world. 

1588 Defeat of the Spanish Armada. Gave to England control 

of the sea and made possible English colonization of 
North America. 


Table of Events and Dates 


749 


1598 Edict of Nantes issued by Henry IV of France. A note¬ 
worthy step in the direction of religious toleration. 

1607 Settlement of Jamestown. The first permanent English 
colony in America. 

1611 Authorized Version of the Bible published. The transla¬ 
tion still in ordinary use among Protestants throughout 
the English-speaking world. 

1648 Peace of Westphalia. Ended the religious wars. 

1687 Newton’s “ Principia ” published. One of the most impor¬ 
tant contributions ever made to physical science. 

1688-1689 The “Glorious Revolution.” Completed the work 
of the Puritan Revolution by overthrowing absolutism 
and divine right in England. 

1704 Battle of Blenheim. Defeated the attempt of Louis XIV 
to make France supreme in western Europe. 

1762 Rousseau’s “Social Contract’’ published. Its democratic 

teachings were put into effect by the French revolution¬ 
ists. 

1763 Peace of Paris. Ended the Seven Years’ War and gave to 

England a colonial empire in India and North America 
at the expense of France. 

1768-1779 Voyages of Captain James Cook. Greatly increased 
geographical knowledge of the Pacific Ocean and its 
archipelagoes. 

1769 Arkwright’s “water frame ” 1770 Hargreaves’s “spinning 
fenny, 1779 Cromptons “mule,” and 1785 Cart- 

/- wright’s power loom. 

1776 Declaration of Independence. 

1781-1782 Watt’s steam engine patented. The steam engine 
had previously served only for pumping; henceforth it 
could be applied to manufacturing and transportation. 

1783 Peace of Paris and Versailles. Ended the War of the 
American Revolution. 

1787 Constitution of the United States framed. 


75 ° 


Table of Events and Dates 


1789 Meeting of the Estates-General in France. The first step 
toward the French Revolution. 

1803 Louisiana Purchase. Made possible a greater United 

States. 

1804 The Code Napoleon promulgated. The most lasting me¬ 

morial of the Napoleonic era. 

1807 Fulton s steamboat, the “ Clermont3’ in successful opera¬ 
tion. 

1814-1815 Congress of Vienna. Remade the map of Europe 
after the revolutionary and Napoleonic era. 

1815 Battle of ll aterloo. Brought about the final overthrow of 
Napoleon Bonaparte. 

1823 Monroe Doctrine enunciated. Has prevented European 
interference in the affairs of the New World. 

1825 Stockton and Darlington Railway opened. The first line 

over which passengers and freight were carried by steam 
power. 

1826 Independence of the Spanish-American colonies recognized 

by Spain. 

1830-1831 The July Revolution in Europe. Overthrew 
absolutism and divine right in France and created mod¬ 
ern Belgium. 

1832 Reform Act in Great Britain. The first step in democra¬ 

tizing the British government. 

1833 Abolition by Great Britain of slavery in the British West 

Indies. 

1837 Morses first telegraph instrument exhibited. 

1838 The Atlantic Ocean crossed by the " Great Western." 

1 he first steamship to make the trip without using sails 
or recoaling on the way. 

1839 Lord Durham s Report. Embodied liberal proposals for 

colonial self-government, which were subsequently 

adopted by Great Britain for Canada and other overseas 
possessions. 

1848-1849 The "February Revolution " in Europe. Made 
" ranee again a republic and led to revolutionary uphea¬ 
vals in Italy, Germany and the Austrian Empire. 


Table of Events and Dates 


75 1 

1851 Crystal Palace Exhibition at London. The first of the 
great international expositions. 

1854 Treaty between Japan and the United States. The first 
step in breaking down Japan’s traditional isolation. 

1858-1861 Russian serfdom abolished by Alexander II. 

1859 Darwins “ Origin of Species ” published. Presentation of 
the evolutionary theory, which has so profoundly influ¬ 
enced modern science, philosophy, and religion. 

1863 Lincoln s Emancipation Proclamation. 

1864 International Red Cross Society founded. Has become the 

greatest humanitarian organization in the world. 

1866 Atlantic Cable laid. The first of the many cables which 
now electrically bridge all the oceans. 

1869 Suez Canal opened. 

1870 Rome occupied by Italian troops. Unification of Italy 

completed. 

1871 German E?npire proclaimed at Versailles. 

1874 International Postal Union established. An important 

agency in internationalization. 

1875 First telephone patented by A. G. Bell. 

1899 Meeting of the First Hague Peace Confere?ice. 

1900 Trans-Siberian Railway cojnpleted from Petrograd to Vla¬ 

divostok. 

1903 S. P. Langley’s airplane and 1908 Wright Brothers' air¬ 
plane. 

1909 North Pole reached by Robert E. Peary and 1911 South 
Pole reached by R. Amundsen. 

1912 China becomes a republic. 

1914 Panama Canal opened. 

1914-1918 World War. 

1917 The Russian Revolution and establishment of Bolshevism 
in Russia. 

1919 Peace Conference at Versailles. 

1920 First meeting of the League of Nations. 

1921-1922 Disarmament Conference at Washington. 































































INDEX 


Abdul Hamid II, 537 
Abraham, 180 

Absentee landlordism in Ireland, 
489, 490 

Abyssinia, 541, 546, 547 
Abyssinians, the, 22 
Acadia. See Nova Scotia 
Achaean League, the, 106, 126 
Achilles, 98, 99 
Acre, 185, 186 

Acropolis of Athens, the, 90, 91 
Actium, naval battle of, 136 
Act of Settlement, the, 293, 294, 472 
Act of Supremacy, the, 259, 260 
Aden, 494 

Aegean civilization, the, 67-69 
Aegean Sea, the, 65, 70 
A^olis, 70 

^Etolian League, the, 106 
Afghanistan, 101, 553, 554, 662 
Africa, geography and peoples of, 
542-544; exploration of, 544-546; 
partitioned, 546-551 
‘‘Agadir incident,” the, 665, 666 
Agamemnon, 71 

Agriculture and land tenure, Orien¬ 
tal, 41, 42; Roman, 114, 128, 129, 
131, 141; medieval, 212, 213; 
modern, 609-612 
Ahriman, 51 
Ahuramazda, 51 
“Aids,” feudal, 169 
Airplane, the, 599 
Airship, the, 599, 600 
Aix-la-Chapelle, Peace of, 312, 325 
Alamanni, the, 159 
Aland Islands, the, 726 
Alaska, 344, 345, 576, 577, 580 
Albania, 538, 669, 670, 693, 724 
Albanians, the, 529 
Albert I, King of Belgium, 682 
Alexander I, King of Greece, 694 
Alexander I, King of Jugoslavia, 
724 

Alexander I, Tsar of Russia, 403, 

753 


404, 415, 417, 432, 524, 525, 526, 
531, 737 ; II, 467, 527, 528, 612; 
III, 528 

Alexander VI, pope, 249 
Alexander the Great, 98-102, 123 
Alexandria, 100, 103, 105, 136 
Alfonso XIII, King of Spain, 508 
Algeciras Conference, the, 665, 738 
Algeria, 504, 505, 548 
Allah, 178 

Alphabet, the, 24, 25, 110, 304, 523 
Alpine racial type, the, 62, 63 
Alps, the, 61, 108 

Alsace, 275, 296, 298, 351, 408, 470, 
471, 514, 517, 658, 660, 696, 718, 
719. See also Lorraine 
Amenhotep IV, 51 
America, the Northmen in, 165; 
discovered by Columbus, 248, 
249; Spanish explorations in, 
251; the Spanish colonial empire, 
251, 252; the Old World and the 
New, 252-254; Dutch settlements 
in, 323 ; English and French col¬ 
onization of, 328-331; rivalry of 
France and England in, 331-334; 
revolt of the Thirteen Colonies, 
334-341; formation of the United 
States, 341-343; British North, 
569-571; Latin, 571-575 ; the ex¬ 
pansion of the United States, 575- 
580 

American Revolution, the, 334-341, 
408 

Amiens, Peace of, 392, 396 
Amphictyonies, Greek, 76, 77 
Amundsen, Roald, 581. 

Amur Valley, the, 552, 559 
Anam, 553 
Anatolia, 722 

Ancestor worship, Roman, 113; 
Chinese, 558 

Anglicanism, 260, 262, 263, 280, 
282, 284, 290, 292, 353, 645 
Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, the, 549 







754 


Index 


Anglo-Japanese Alliance, the, 564, 
743 

Anglo-Russian Convention, the, 552, 
553, 662 

Anglo-Saxon language, the, 233, 
234 

Anglo-Saxons, the, 157, 165 
Angola, 547 

Animals, domestication of, 14, 41; 

worship of, 49; cruelty to, 636 
Anne, Queen of England, 292, 293, 
294, 299, 483 

Antarctic exploration, 581, 583 
Anthony, Miss Susan B., 638, 639 
Anthropology, 653 
Antioch, 103 
Antiquity of man, the, 5 
Anti-Saloon League, the, 636 
Antony, Mark, 136 
Apennines, the, 108 
Apollo, 72, 73, 77, 87 
Arabia, 177, 178 
Arabian Empire, the, 181, 182 
Arabs, the, 22, 159, 177-183, 244, 
250, 543, 544, 697, 723 
Aragon, 196, 197 
Aramaeans, the, 33 
Arbela, battle of, 100 
Arbitration, international, 738 
Arch, the, 56, 110, 229, 239 
Archangel, 305 

Architecture, Oriental, 54, 56; 

Greek, 90, 91; Byzantine, 175; 
Arab, 183; medieval, 228-230; 
Renaissance, 239, 240, 242; mod¬ 
ern, 655 

Arctic exploration, 581 

Argentina, 574 

Argos, 75, 78 

Aristotle, 93, 98, 244 

Arkwright, Richard, 588, 589, 594 

Armada, Spanish, 272, 328 

Armenia, 728 

Armistice with Germany, the, 714, 
715 

Art. See Architecture, Painting, 
Sculpture 

Articles of Confederation, the, 341, 
550 

Artisans, Oriental, 41; Athenian, 
89; Roman, 141; medieval, 222- 
225; modern, 350, 351 
Artois, Count of, 380, 427 


Ashley, Lord. See Shaftesbury, Earl 
of 

Asia, divisions of, 27, 28; medieval 
exploration of, 244, 245; opening 
up and partition of, 551-564 
Asquith, H. H., 492, 683 
Assignats, the, 377, 378 
Assur, 35 

Assyria, 34, 35, 36, 38, 41, 50, 54 
Assyrians, the, 22, 24 
Astrolabe, the, 246 
Astrology, 50 

Astronomy, 55, 56, 105, 183, 243, 
357, 648 

Asylums, insane, 635 
Athena, 72, 90, 91 
Athens, rise of, 79; in the Persian 
wars, 82, 83-86; ascendancy of, 
87-90; Athenian culture, 90-93; 
rivalry of, with Sparta, 94; de¬ 
feated by Philip II, 97 
Athletics, Greek, 73, 74 
Athos, Mount, 84 
Atlantis, myth of, 248 
Attila the Hun, 188 
Augsburg, Peace of, 268, 273, 642 
Augustus, 136, 137, 138, 140, 144, 
150, 156 

Ausgleich, the, 520, 521 
Austerlitz, battle of, 397, 398, 447 
Australia, exploration of, 343, 344; 
settlement of, 567, 568; the Aus¬ 
tralian Commonwealth, 568 ; in 
the World War, 696, 720 
Austria, under Maria Theresa, 308, 
309; in the Seven Years’ War, 
312, 313; under Joseph II, 366; 
during the revolutionary and 
Napoleonic era, 385, 389, 390, 
391, 392, 396, 397, 399, 400, 403, 
405, 406; territorial acquisitions 
of, by the Vienna settlement, 419; 
under Metternich, 421, 422; re¬ 
volt of Bohemia and Hungary 
against, 438, 439; at war with 
Sardinia, 455, 456; loss of Lom¬ 
bardy and Venetia by, 456, 458; 
at war with Prussia, 465-467; 
eliminated from German affairs, 
468; union of, with Hungary, 
520, 521; new republic of, 721, 
731, 732. See also Austria-Hun¬ 
gary 




Index 


755 


Austria-Hungary, government of, 
520; nationalities of, 520, 521; 
between 1871 and 1914, 521, 522, 
536, 658, 659, 668, 669, 670; in 
the World War, 678-680, 684, 
690, 692, 693, 694, 695, 696, 702, 
713, 714 

Austrian Succession, the, War of, 
312, 325, 332 

Austro-Prussian War, the, 467, 468, 
658 

Austro-Sardinian War, the, 455, 456 
Automobile, the, 599 
Azerbaijan, 728 
Azores, the, 509 
Aztecs, the, 251 

Baber, 324 

Babylon, 28, 34, 44, 100 
Babylonia, geography, 28; rise of, 
29, 32; under Nebuchadnezzar, 
36; civilization of, 41, 42, 43, 47, 
48, 50, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58 
Babylonians, the, 22, 24, 25 
Bacon, Lord, 244 
Bacteria, 651 
Baden, 441, 468 
Bagdad, 182, 183, 667, 697 
Bagdad Railway, 667 
Baker, Sir Samuel, 545 
Balance of pow r er, European, 276, 
277, 298, 396, 421, 471, 657, 663 
Balboa, 251 

Balkan Peninsula, the, physical 
features of, 529; peoples of, 529, 
530 

Balkan Wars, the, 538, 669, 670 
Ballot Act, the, 480 
Baltic (Nordic) racial type, the, 
62, 63, 69, 110, 155 
Banking, Oriental, 43; modern, 394, 
604, 605, 620 

Bannockburn, battle of, 193 
Baptists, the, 290, 353, 646 
Basel, Treaty of, 386 
Bastille, the, 375 
Batavia, 322, 343 
Batavian Republic, the, 386, 398 
Bavaria, 312, 420, 468 
Bazaine, General, 469 
Beaconsfield, Lord. See Disraeli, 
Benjamin 

Beauharnais, Eugene, 399 


Beccaria, 634 
Bechuanaland, 549, 550 
Bedouins, the, 178, 179 
Beethoven, 644 

Behaim, Martin, globe of, 247 
Belgian Congo, the, 510, 547, 738 
Belgium, 270, 277, 418, 431, 510, 
547, 682, 683, 684, 685, 686, 689, 
696, 719, 737 
Bell, A. G., 601 
Benedict XV, pope, 507, 706 
Benedictine Rule, the, 206, 207 
Bengal, 327 

Benjamin, Hebrew tribe, 34 
Berchtold, Count, 680 
Bering, Vitus, 345, 576 
Berlin, 313, 440 

Berlin Decree, 400, 401; Treaty, 
536, 537, 658, 660, 669, 738 
Bermudas, the, 494 
Bessarabia, 419, 524, 531 
Bethmann-Hollw r eg, Chancellor, 681, 
682, 683, 701 

Bible, the. See Old Testament, New 
Testament 

Bill of Rights, the, 292, 293, 379, 
472 

Bimetallism, 605 

Bismarck, Prince, 464-471, 517, 

518, 519, 536, 657, 658, 659, 661, 
663, 666, 719 
Black Death, the, 217 
“Black Hole” of Calcutta, the, 327 
Black Race, the, 18, 19, 20, 21, 543, 
544 

Blanc, Louis, 623, 624, 625 
Blenheim, battle of, 299 
Blucher, 407 

Boers, the, 323, 548, 549, 662 
Boer War. See South African War 
Bohemia, 438, 439, 443, 725 
Boleyn, Anne, 259, 260 
Bolivar, Simon de, 572, 573 
Bolivia, 253, 572 
Bologna, university of, 230 
Bolsheviki, the, 612, 709, 710, 725, 
726, 727, 732, 733 
Book of Common Prayer, the, 260, 
282, 286, 290 

Book of the Dead, the, 47, 53 
Booth, William, 637 
Borneo, 496, 566 
Borodino, battle of, 404 





756 


Index 


Borussi, the, 310 

Bosnia, 536, 658, 668, 669, 678, 724 
“Boston Tea Party,” the, 337 
Boulogne, 396, 397 
Bourbon dynasty, French, 273, 299, 
375, 406, 416, 428; Spanish, 300, 
416, 508 

Bourgeoisie, the, rise of, 220 
“Boxers,” the, in China, 560, 664, 
738 

Boyne River, the, battle of, 488, 489 
Braganza dynasty, the, 509 
Brahmanism, 555 

Brandenburg, 275, 278, 300, 310, 
311, 312, 313 

Brazil, 251, 402, 425, 509, 573, 574, 
634, 704 

Brest-Litovsk, Treaty of, 710 
Britain, Roman conquest of, 137, 
138. See also England 
British Empire, the, 493-499 
British Isles, the, 193 
Bruges, 228 
Brunswick, 433 
Brusilov, General, 692, 693 
Buddha, Gautama, 555 
Buddhism, 555, 557, 558, 562 
Bukharest, Treaty of, 538, 670 
Bukowina, 721 

Bulgaria, 536, 537, 538, 670, 692, 
693, 694, 702, 713, 721, 722, 741 
Bulgarians, the, 18, 176, 188, 190, 
530 

Bundesrat, the, 515, 516, 731 
Burgundians, the, 157, 158, 195 
Burke, Edmund, 337, 499 
Burma, 245, 555, 559 
Byzantine Empire, the, 173-177 
Byzantium, 80, 151 

Cabinet system, the, in Great Brit¬ 
ain, 342, 413, 485-487 
Cables, submarine, 601 
Cabot, John, 328 
Cadiz, 46, 271 
Caesar, Julius, 134-136, 195 
Cairo, 182 

Calculus, the, 356, 357 
Calcutta, 325, 327 
Calendar, the solar, 55, 56 
California, 251 

Caliphate, the, dismemberment of, 
182 


Calvin, John, 259, 272, 280 
Calvinism, 259, 263, 269, 274, 275, 
280 

Cambodia, 553 
Cambyses, 37, 81 
Cameroons, the, 547, 696, 720 
Campania, 110, 118 
Campo Formio, Treaty of, 389, 
392, 397, 460 

Canada, French settlement of, 329, 
330 ; acquired by Great Britain, 
332-334; the “Tories” in, 338, 
569; development of, during the 
nineteenth and twentieth centur¬ 
ies, 569-571 

Canal-building, era of, 596, 597 
Cannae, battle of, 124 
Canning, George, 426 
Cape Colony, 418, 548, 549 
Cape of Good Hope, the, 45, 227, 
247, 323, 544 

Cape-to-Cairo Railway, the, 550 
Capet, Hugh, 196, 233, 377 
Capetian dynasty, the, 196 
Capital punishment, 634, 635 
Caracalla, 138 
Carbonari, the, 451, 452 
Cardinalate, the, 210 
Carnot, Lazare, 386, 389 
Carthage, a Phoenician colony, 46; 
civilization of, 120, 121 ; wars of, 
with Rome, 121-125 
Cartier, Jacques, 329 
Cartwright, Edward, 589, 594 
Castes, Indian, 555, 556 
Castile, 196, 197 
Castles, feudal, 170, 171 
Cathay, 245, 248, 330 
Cathedrals, Gothic, 229, 230 
Catherine II, the Great, 306, 308, 
317, 318, 364, 365, 524, 525, 531 
Catherine of Aragon, 259, 260 
Catholic Church. See Greek Church, 
Roman Church 
Caucasia, 524, 728 
Caucasian Race. See White Race 
“Cavaliers,” the, 285, 291 
Cavour, Count, 454-459, 471, 506, 
534 

Celebes, 322 

Celtic languages, 193, 195 
Censorship of the press, 266, 354 



Index 


757 


Central American Federation, the, 
574 

Ceylon, 245, 250, 251, 322, 418, 496, 
555 

Chasronea, battle of, 97, 98 
Chalcidice, peninsula of, 96 
Chalons, battle of, 188 
Champlain, Samuel de, 330 
Channel Islands, the, 493 
Charity, Roman, 144, 145; medie¬ 
val, 204; modern, 629 
Charlemagne, 159-161, 166, 196, 

211, 222, 228, 395, 396, 399, 445 
Charles I, Emperor of Austria, 522, 
714 

Charles I, King of England, 282- 
289, 328; II, 289, 290, 291, 328, 
329, 416, 604 

Charles I, King of Rumania, 668 
Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, 
249, 259, 260, 264, 267, 268, 269; 
VI, 309 

Charles X, King of France, 427, 
428, 435 

Charles Albert, King of Sardinia, 
439, 440, 505 
Chartism, 477, 478 
Chateau-Thierry, 712 
Chatham, Earl of. See William Pitt 
Chaucer, 234 

Child labor, regulation of, 615, 616, 
617, 618 

Children, condition of, 113, 639, 640 
Chile, 574 

China, in antiquity, 26, 27; visited 
by the Polos, 245; geography and 
people of, 556, 557; civilization 
of, 557, 558; during the nine¬ 
teenth and twentieth centuries, 
558-561, 664, 704, 743, 744 
Chinese, the, 20, 21, 24, 557 
Chino-Japanese War, the, 559, 564, 
697 ' 

Chivalry, 172, 173 
Chosen. See Korea 
Christianity, rise and spread of, 
145-147; persecuted, 147, 148; 

triumph of, 148; influence of, on 
Roman society, 148, 150; adop¬ 
tion of, by the Germans, 158, 159 ; 
separation of the Greek and Ro¬ 
man Churches, 176; in Western 
Europe, during the Middle Ages, 


200-211; the Protestant Reforma¬ 
tion and Catholic Counter Ref¬ 
ormation, 254-267; the religious 
wars, 267-276; during the eight¬ 
eenth century, 352-354; modern, 
642-647. See also Greek Church, 
Protestantism, Roman Church 
Church and State, separation of, 
491, 644, 645 

Church of England. See Anglican¬ 
ism 

Cipango, 245, 248 
Circumnavigation of the globe, 
Magellan’s, 249, 250; Drake’s, 
343 

Cisalpine Republic, the, 390, 399 
Cities, Hellenistic, 102, 103; Ro¬ 
man, 139, 140; medieval, 218- 
222; modern, 627 

Citizenship, Roman, 119, 132, 133, 
138, 143 

City-state, the, Oriental, 30, 31, 32; 
Greek, 75-77, 93, 94, 98; Roman, 
115-117 

Civilization, nature of, 1-3; Orien¬ 
tal, 39-59; ./Egean, 67-69; Athe¬ 
nian, 90-93; Hellenistic, 102-107; 
Etruscan, 110; Roman, 142-145; 
Byzantine, 175-177; Arabian, 182, 
183; medieval, 200-237; modern, 
630-656 
Claudius, 137 

Clemenceau, Georges, 717, 733 

Cleopatra, 136 

Clergy, medieval, 205-208 

Clive, Robert, 326, 327, 554 

Clotilda, 159 

Clovis, 158, 159 

Coal, 591 

Cochin-China, 245, 553 
Code Napoleon, the, 392, 393, 416, 
451, 639 

Coinage, invention of, 43 
Coligny, Admiral de, 329 
Colombia, 572, 573, 579 
Colonial policy, the old, 251, 252, 
320, 334, 336, 340; the new, 498, 
541, 542 

Colonization, Phoenician, 44-46; 

Greek, 49-81 
Cblumbus, 248, 249 
Combination Acts, the, 613, 614, 615 





758 


Index 


Commerce, 43-46, 69, 90, 103, 140, 

175, 226-228, 603-609 
Committee of Public Safety, French, 

386, 388 

Common Law, the, 143, 198, 291, 
482 

Commons, House of, 281, 282, 287, 
473, 474, 475, 485 

Commonwealth, the, in England, 
288 

Commune of Paris, the, 375, 383, 
501 

Communication, improvements in, 
600-603 

Companies, trading, 320, 321 ; char¬ 
tered, 495, 496 

Compass, the mariner’s, 245, 246 
Comte, Auguste, 653 
Concert of Europe, the, 423-426, 
737, 738 

Concordat, the, 393, 416, 645 
Confederation of the Rhine, the, 
399, 401 

Confucius, 558, 562 
Congo Free State. See Belgian 
Congo 

Congo River, the, 546 
Congregationalism, 290 
Congresses, world, 632 
Connecticut, 328 

Conscription, military, 405, 464, 671 
Conservative Party, British, 476, 
479, 480, 487, 661 

Constantine I, King of Greece, 668, 
692, 694 

Constantine the Great, 148, 151, 
152, 156 

Constantinople, 80, 151, 174, 175, 

176, 177, 181, 190, 197, 398, 533, 
534, 535, 536, 692, 693, 722 

Constitution of the United States, 
341-343, 361, 414, 644, 645, 717 
Consulate, Napoleon’s, 391-394 
Consuls, Roman, 115 
Continental Congress, the, 337, 338, 
341 

Continental System, Napoleon’s, 400, 
401, 402, 403, 569 
Cook, Captain James, 344, 345, 567 
Cooperative societies, 615, 622, 623 
Copernicus, 243 

Copper and bronze, introduction of, 
15, 16, 67 


Cordova, 182 

Corinth, 75, 77, 81, 97, 126 
Corn Laws, the, repeal of, 608 
Cornwall, 45 
Cornwallis, Lord, 339 
Coronado, 251 

Corpus Juris Cwilis, the, 143 
Corsica, 81, 122, 369, 388 
Cortes, 251 
Costa Rica, 574, 716 
Cotton gin, the, 589 
Courland, 696, 710, 727 
Covenanters, Scotch, 284 
Cranmer, Archbishop, 260 
Crassus, 134, 135 

Crete, 15, 16, 24, 25, 31, 44, 58, 67- 
69, 533, 534, 538 
Crimea, the, 307, 531, 534 
Crimean War, the, 449, 454, 526, 
534, 660, 661, 731 
Crises, commercial, 606, 607 
Cro-Magnon man, 8 
Crompton, Samuel, 588, 594 
Cromwell, Oliver, 284, 285, 286, 
287, 288, 289, 488, 489 
Crown colonies, British, 496 
Crusades, the, 184-187, 535 
Cuba, 508, 509, 575, 704 
Cumae, 80 

Curie, Pierre and Marie, 650 
Cyprus, 15, 16, 31, 44, 81, 185, 494, 
536 

Cvrene, 81, 82 

Cyrus the Great, 36, 37, 81, 82 
Czecho-Slovakia, 721, 725 

Dacia, 138, 530 
Damascus, 33 
Danes, the, 165, 234 
Dante, 237 

Danton, 382, 383, 384, 385, 386, 
387, 641 
Danzig, 719 

Darius I, the Great, 37, 82, 83, 84, 
99; III, 99, 100 
Darwin, Charles, 649, 652 
David, Hebrew king, 34 
Debts, public, 735 
Declaration of Independence, the, 
338, 340, 360, 584 
Declaration of Paris, the, 737 
Declaration of the Rights of Man, 
the, 378, 379, 644 






Index 


759 


Deists, the, 359, 360, 361 
Delaware, 329 
Delhi, 554 

Delian League, the, 87, 88, 89, 90 
Delos, 65, 77, 87, 88 
Delphi, 73 

Delphic amphictyony, the, 77 
Delphic oracle, the, 73, 75, 148 
Demarcation line, the, 249 
Democracy, modern, 411-414 
Demosthenes, 97 

Denmark, 164, 258, 278, 400, 419, 
466, 512, 513, 514, 575, 633, 719 
Departements, French, 377, 392, 504 
De Soto, 251 
Diaz, Armando, 713 
Diaz, Porfirio, 574, 575 
Diocletian, 150 
Directory, the, 388-391 
Disarmament, movement for inter¬ 
national, 672, 673; of the Central 
Powers, after the World War, 
720, 721, 722; the Washington 
conference, 741-744 
Disarmament Conference, the, 741- 
744 

Disraeli, Benjamin, 479, 661 
Dissenters. See Nonconformists 
Divination, 50, 110 
Divine right of kings, theory of, 
279, 280 

Divorce laws, 639 
Dodecanese Islands, the, 722 
Dodona, oracle of, 73, 75 
Domestic system, the, 592, 593 
Dominicans, the, 207, 208 
Dominions, British, 496, 498, 499 
Dom Pedro II, Emperor of Brazil, 
573 

Drake, Sir Francis, 272, 343 
Drama, Greek, 91, 92; modern, 

653, 654 

Dravidians, the, 555 
Dual Alliance, the, 659-661, 663 
Dual Monarchy. See Austria-Hun¬ 
gary 

Dublin, 487 

Duma, the, 528, 529, 707, 708 
Dupleix, 325, 326, 327 
Durazzo, 669 

Durham, Lord, Report of, 5^0 
Dushan, Stephen, 532 


Eastern Question, the, 308, 454, 529, 
534, 536, 538, 663, 666, 738 
East India Company, Dutch, 322, 
323, 566; English, 325, 327, 554 
Ebert, Friedrich, 730 
Economics, science of, 355 
Ecuador, 572, 573, 741 
Edison, T. A., 601 
Education, Oriental, 57; medieval, 
230-232; humanism and, 238; 
Jesuit, 265; modern, 354, 640-642 
Edward I, King of England, 193; 
VI, 260; VII, 483 

Egypt, geography of, 29; history of, 
in antiquity, 30-32, 37, 81, 82, 
100, 102, 136; civilization of, 39, 
40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 46, 47, 49, 51, 
52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58; Napo¬ 
leon, in, 390; under British sway, 
549, 550, 697; independent, 550 
Egyptians, the, 15, 16, 24, 25 
Elba, 406, 414, 446 
Electricity, 357, 598, 648, 650 
Elizabeth, Queen, 260, 271, 273, 
280, 281, 325, 328 
Emigration and immigration, 627 
Emigres, the, 380, 393, 733 
Ems dispatch, the, 469 
Encyclopedists, the, 363, 364, 370 
England, conquered by Teutonic 
peoples, 137, 165, 166; expansion 
of, during the Middle Ages, 193- 
195; under James I and Charles 
I, 281-288; the Commonwealth 
and Protectorate, 288, 289; the 
Restoration and the “Glorious 
Revolution,” 289-294; at war 
with Louis XIV, 297, 298, 299, 
300; in the War of the Austrian 
Succession and the Seven Years’ 
War, 312, 313; rivalry of, with 
France in India and North Amer¬ 
ica, 324-334; loss of the Thirteen 
Colonies by, 334-341; during the 
revolutionary and Napoleonic 
era, 385, 389, 390, 391, 392, 396, 
397, 400, 401, 402, 406; territor¬ 
ial acquisitions of, by the Vienna 
settlement, 418; between 1815 
and 1871, 423, 424, 425, 426, 429, 
431, 432, 455, 533, 534; move¬ 
ment for parliamentary reform 
in, 472-482; government of, 482- 






760 


Index 


487; the Irish Question, 487-493 ; 
the British Empire, 493-499, 548- 
550, 554-556, 567-571; the Indus¬ 
trial Revolution in, 586, 594, 595; 
between 1871 and 1914, 661, 662, 
663, 665, 667, 669, 671, 672; in 
the World War, 679, 681, 682, 
683, 684, 685, 686, 687, 693, 696- 
698, 710, 711, 712, 713; territor¬ 
ial acquisitions of, by the Ver¬ 
sailles settlement, 720, 722, 723 
English language, the, 234, 631 
“Enlightened despots,” the, 364-366 
Enos-Midia line, the, 538 
Entente Cordiale, the, 662, 682 
Eolithic Age, the, 9 
Ephors, Spartan, 78, 79 
Equal Franchise Act, the, 481, 638 
Erasmus, 241 
Eric the Red, 165 
Ericsson, Leif, 165 
Eritrea, 507, 547 

Estates-General, French, 371-374, 
391 

Esthonia, 710, 726, 727, 741 
Esthonians, the, 18, 63 
Etruria, 109, 118 
Etruscans, the, 109, 110 
Eugene, Prince, 299 
Eugenie, Empress, 449, 500 
Euphrates River, the, 28 
Europe, the Ice Age in, 4-6; first 
traces of man in, 6-8; Neolithic, 
12, 13; geographical features of, 
60, 61; racial types and lan¬ 
guages of, 62, 63 

Evolutionary theory, the, 649, 650 
Exchanges, produce and stock, 604 
Excommunication, 203 
Exploration, ancient, 45, 46; me¬ 
dieval, 244-246; modern, 247- 
250, 343-345, 580-583 
Expositions, universal, 448, 631, 632 

Factory Acts, British, 616, 617 
Factory system, the, 594, 615 
Fairs, medieval, 225, 226 
“Fall of Rome,” the, 153 
Family, the, 47, 72, 112, 113, 639, 
640 

Far Eastern Treaty, the, 743 
Faroe Islands, the, 514 


“February Revolution,” the, in 
France, 435-437, 447, 477, 624 
Federations, Greek, 76, 77, 87, 88, 
106 

Feisal, King of Irak, 723 
Ferdinand I, Emperor of Austria, 
434, 438 

Ferdinand I, Holy Roman Emperor, 
268 

Ferdinand I, Tsar of Bulgaria, 537, 
538, 668, 713 

Ferdinand VII, King of Spain, 402, 
416, 425, 507, 572 
Ferdinand of Aragon, 197, 249 
Feudalism, rise of, 166, 167; extent 
of, in Europe, 167, 168; as a 
system of local government, 168- 
170; feudal warfare, 170-172; 
knighthood and chivalry, 172, 
173; royalty and, 197, 198; the 
cities and, 219; Polish, 315; 
abolition of, in revolutionary 
France, 376; Japanese, 562, 563 
Fiction, modern, 653 
Field, Cyrus W., 601 
Filipinos, the, 565, 566 
Finance, international, 606 
Finland, 165, 398, 419, 524, 710, 
726, 727 

Finns, the, 18, 63, 165 
Fiume, 724 

Flemings, the, 429, 510 
Florence, 237 

Florida, 251, 329, 333, 340, 576 
Foch, Marshal, 686, 711, 712 
Folk songs, 655 
Formosa, 559 

Four-Power Treaty, the, 743 
“Fourteen Points,” Wilson’s, 706, 
707 

Fox, George, 353 

France, physical and racial, 195; 
unification of, 196; the Reforma¬ 
tion and religious wars in, 272, 
273; under Louis XIV, 295-301; 
in the War of the Austrian Suc¬ 
cession and the Seven Years’ War, 
312, 313; rivalry of, with Eng¬ 
land in India and North Amer¬ 
ica, 324-334; alliance of, with the 
Thirteen Colonies, 338, 339 ; the 
French Revolution, 367-391 ; the 
Napoleonic era, 391-410; restora- 


I 




I ndex 


761 


tion of Louis XVIII, 416; the 
“July Revolution,” 427, 428; the 
“February Revolution” and the 
second French Republic, 435-437; 
under Napoleon III, 445-449; ac¬ 
quires Savoy and Nice, 457; the 
Franco-German War, 468-471; 
between 1871 and 1914, 500, 501, 
658, 659, 660, 661, 662, 663, 664; 
government of, 501-504; colonial 
possessions of, 504, 505, 547, 548, 
553, 555, 567; in the World War, 
679, 681, 682, 683, 685, 686, 687, 
689, 696, 711, 712, 713; territo¬ 
rial acquisitions of, by the Ver¬ 
sailles settlement, 718, 719, 720, 
722 

Franche-Comte, 298, 351, 676 
Francis I, Emperor of Austria, 415, 
422, 737 

Francis Ferdinand, assassination of, 
678 

Francis Joseph I, Emperor of Aus¬ 
tria, 439, 455, 456, 467, 519, 520, 
521, 522, 526, 577, 658, 711 
Franciscans, the, 207, 208 
Franco-German War, the, 468-471 
Frankfort, Assembly, 440, 441 ; Diet, 
462, 464; Treaty, 470, 471, 501, 
658 

Franklin, Benjamin, 341, 357, 368 
Franks, the, 157, 1 58, 159, 160, 161, 
195 

Frederick II, the Great, 309, 311- 
314, 317, 318, 347, 365, 641, 675, 
719; III, 518 

Frederick William III, King of 
Prussia, 415, 737; IV, 434, 440, 
441, 442, 463 

Free trade, adoption of, by Great 
Britain, 607, 608 

French and Indian War, the, 332, 
333 

French language, the, 195 
French Revolution, the, 367-391, 
408-410, 623, 637 
French, Sir John, 686 
Friars, orders of, 207, 208 
Friedland, battle of, 397, 398 
Frobisher, Sir Martin, 272, 328 
Fry, Mrs. Elizabeth, 635 
Fulton, Robert, 597, 600 


Future life, the, Oriental and Greek 
ideas of, 52, 73 

Gades. See Cadiz 
Galicia, 317, 419, 431, 690, 696, 
721, 725, 726 
Galileo, 243 
Gallipoli, 693 

Gallo-Romans, the, 188, 195, 233 
Gama, Vasco da, 247, 250 
Gambetta, 500, 501 
Garibaldi, 458, 506 
Gaul, conquered by Julius Caesar, 
134, 135 

Gauls, the, 118, 120, 122, 195 
Geneva, 259, 738, 740 
Geneva Convention, the, 738 
Genoa, 278, 390, 398, 417. See also 
Ligurian Republic 
Geological epochs, the, 3, 4 
George I, King of England, 294, 
472; II, 329, 472; III, 337, 344, 
472, 473, 474; IV, 473, 737; V, 
482, 492 

George, David Lloyd, 645, 717, 739 
Georgia, American state, 329 
Georgia, Caucasian republic, 728 
Germanic Confederation, the, 421, 
431, 433, 441, 461, 462, 465, 466, 
468, 514 

German Revolution, the, 714, 730, 
731 

Germans, the, early culture of, 155, 
156; invade the Roman world, 
156, 157; fusion of, with the Ro¬ 
mans, 158 

Germany, physical features of, 155; 
political condition of, during the 
Middle Ages, 163; the Reforma¬ 
tion and religious wars in, 256- 
258, 267, 268, 273-275; disunion 
of, 277; during the revolutionary 
and Napoleonic era, 390, 399; 
after the Vienna settlement, 420, 
421 ; revolutionary outbreaks of 
1830 and 1848 in, 433, 434, 440, 
441; unification of, 459-471; gov¬ 
ernment of, 514-517, 730, 731; 
between 1871 and 1914, 517-519, 
547, 657-677; colonies of, 547, 
567, 664, 696, 697; in the World 
War, 678-715; peace treaty with, 



762 


Index 


717, 718-720; republic of, 730 
731 

Gibraltar, 45, 64, 300, 494 
Gideon, 34 

Gilbert, Sir Humphrey, 328 
Girondists, the, 384, 387 
Gladstone, W. E., 478, 479, 480, 490, 
491, 492, 607, 645 
‘'Glorious Revolution,” the, in Eng¬ 
land, 292, 293, 331, 336, 367, 408, 
488 

Gnossus, 67, 68 
Golden Horde, the, 189 
Gold standard, the, 605, 606 
Gothic architecture, 229, 230 
Goths. See Ostrogoths, Visigoths 
Gracchi, the, 130-132 
Granada, 197 

Great Britain. See England, Scot¬ 
land, Wales 

Greece, physical features of, 66 
Greek Church, the, 176, 352, 524, 
728 

Greek Empire. See Byzantine Em¬ 
pire 

Greek language, the, 69, 74, 75, 103, 
238, 241, 242 

Greeks, the, prehistoric migrations 
of, 69, 70; during the Homeric 
Age, 71, 72; religion and relig¬ 
ious institutions of, 72-75 ; their 
city-states, 75-79; colonial expan¬ 
sion of, 79-81; the Persian wars, 
81-87 ; ascendancy of Athens, 87- 
90; conflicts between, 93, 94; be¬ 
come subject to Macedonia, 95- 
97; form Aitolian and Achsean 
leagues, 106; become subject to 
Rome, 126 ; conquered by the Ot¬ 
toman Turks, 532, 533 ; during 
the nineteenth and twentieth cen¬ 
turies, 533, 534, 536, 538, 692, 694 
Greenland, 164, 165, 514, 581 
Grey, Earl, 475 
Grey, Sir Edward, 679, 681 
Grotius, Hugo, 276 
Guam, 567, 576 
Guiana, 323, 418, 496, 738 
Guilds, medieval, 221-225, 350, 351 
592 

Guizot, F. P. G., 436 
Gulf Stream drift, the, 61 


Gustavus Adolphus, 274, 276, 329 
[ Gutenberg, 239 

Habeas Corpus Act, the, 290, 472 
Hades, Greek underworld, 73 » 
Hague Peace Conferences, the, 673, 
682, 687, 738 

Hague Tribunal, the, 679, 738, 739 
I Haig, Sir Douglas, 687 
Haiti, 575 

Hamitic languages and peoples, 21, 
543, 544 

Hammurabi, 32, 39, 48 
Hampden, John, 283, 284, 285 
Hannibal, 123, 124 
Hanno, voyage of, 46 
Hanover, 420, 433, 460, 467, 468 
Hanoverian dynasty, the, 294 
Ilapsburg dynasty, the, 268, 277, 
299, 300, 308, 521, 714, 732 
Harding, W. G., 718, 741, 744 
Hastings, battle of, 165 
Hawaiian Islands, the, 344, 567 
576, 742, 743 

Hebrews, the, 22, 33-35, 36, 37, 49, 
H, 52, 53, 54. See also Jews 
Hegira, the, 179 
Heidelberg man, 6 
Hejaz, the, kingdom of, 697, 723 
Helgoland, 418, 672, 720 
Hellas, 81 

Hellenistic Age, the, 102-107 
Henry IV, King of France, 273, 330, 
736 

Henry VIII, King of England, 259, 
260, 280, 281, 487 
Hera, 72 

Hermits, early Christian, 206 
Herodotus, 92 

Herzegovina, 536, 658, 668, 669, 
678, 724 

Hesse, 468 # 

Ilesse-Cassel, 468 

Hindenburg, Field-Marshal, 690 
711 

Hindenburg Line, the, 689, 713 
Hinduism. See Brahmanism 
Hindus, the, 555, 556 
Hiram, King of Tyre, 34 
History, the study of, 1 , 653 
Hittites, the, 58, 59 
Hohenlinden, battle of, 392 


\ 


I 



Index 


763 


Hohenzollern dynasty, the, 300, 309, 
310, 311, 312, 314,' 518, 714 
Holland, separates from Spain, 270; 
independence of, recognized, 271, 
275, 277; at war with Louis XIV, 
297, 298, 299; acquires a colonial 
empire, 321-324; at war with 
Great Britain, 338, 340; during 
the revolutionary and Napoleonic 
era, 385, 386, 398 ; the Austrian 
Netherlands united with, 418, 
419; loses the Austrian Nether¬ 
lands, 429; government and co¬ 
lonial possessions of, 512, 566, 567 
Holland, J. P., 600 
Holstein, 460, 461, 466, 468. See also 
Schleswig 

Holy Alliance, the, 737 
Holy Roman Empire, the, 163, 274, 
399, 400, 460, 461 
Homer, 71, 72, 75 
Homeric Age, the, 70, 71 
Home Rule Bills, 491, 492 
Hongkong, 494, 559 
Hoover, Herbert, 689, 704 
Horthy, Admiral von, 732 
Hospitalers, the, 185 
Hudson, Henry, 323 
Huguenots, the, 272, 323, 329, 642 
Humanism, 238 
Humbert I, King of Italy, 506 
Humboldt, Alexander von, 580 
Hungarians. See Magyars 
Hungary, 188, 189, 307, 308, 309, 
439, 519, 520, 521, 721 
Huns, the, 188 

Husein, King of the Hejaz, 723 
Huss, John, 255 
Hyksos, the, 31 

Ice Age, the, 4-6 
Iceland, 164, 513, 514 
Iliad, the, 71, 72, 75, 98 
Imperial federation movement, the, 
498, 499 

Imperialism, 541, 542, 663, 664 
Incas, the, 251 

Inclosures in Great Britain, 610 
Indemnity, German, 720 
Independents, the, 287, 290 
“Index of Prohibited Books,” the, 
266 

India, in antiquity, 26, 27, 37, 101 ; 


rivalry of France and England 
in, 324-328 ; a part of the British 
Empire, 495, 554; peoples of, 

554, 555; civilization of, 555, 556 
Indians, American, the, 1, 15, 17, 
18, 23, 571, 572, 647 
Indies, East, 251, 322; West, 249, 
251, 323, 494, 496, 575, 633 
Indo-China, 27, 504, 553, 557, 559 
Indo-Chinese, the, 20, 21 
Indo-European languages, the, 22, 
36, 58, 69, 110 
Indulgences, 256 
Industrial Revolution, 584-629 
Industry, government regulation of, 
615-619 

Initiative and referendum, the, in 
Switzerland, 511 
Inquisition, the, 267, 268 
Instrument of Government, the, 288, 
414 

Insurance, 604 

Internationalism, ancient, 38, 107, 
145; medieval, 201 ; modern, 630- 
632 

International Labor Office, the, 619 
International law, 276, 699, 700 
International Postal Union, the, 602, 
632 

International Red Cross, the, 632, 
637, 738 

Invention, significance of, 586 
Ionia, 70, 82, 83, 84, 533 
Ionian Islands, the, 418, 531, 533 
Irak, 723 
Iran, 22, 100 

Ireland, conquered by England, 
194, 195, 487-489; the Irish Ques¬ 
tion, 489-492; formation of the 
Irish Free State, 492, 493 
Iron, introduction of, 16, 35, 69; 
use of, in modern industry, 590, 
591 

Isabella of Castile, 197, 249, 250 
Tsis, 146 

Islam, beliefs and practices of, 179- 
181 

Israel, kingdom of, 34, 35 
Issus, battle of, 99 
Italia Irredenta, 459, 694 
Italians, ancient, 110, 111 
Italy, geography of, 108, 109; early 
peoples of, 109-111; under Roman 







764 


Index 


rule, 118-120; political condition 
of, throughout the Middle Ages, 
163; the Renaissance in, 236, 237; 
disunion of, 277, 278; during the 
Napoleonic era, 389, 390, 391, 392, 
394, 395, 397, 399; after the 

Vienna settlement, 417, 418, 420; 
revolutionary movements of 1820, 
1830, and 1848 in, 425, 433, 439, 
440; unification of, 449-459; gov¬ 
ernment of, 505-507; colonies of, 
507, 508, 547; between 1871 and 
1914, 659, 670 ; in the World War, 
679, 694-696, 713, 714; acquires 
Austrian territory, 721 
Ivan III, the Great, 302 

Jacobins, the, in revolutionary 
France, 382, 383, 384, 388, 389, 
394 

James I, King of England, 281, 282, 
293, 328, 489, 493; II, 291, 292, 
331, 482, 483, 488 
Jamestown, 328 
Janizaries, the, 530, 531 
Japan, geography and people of, 
561; civilization of, 562; during 
the nineteenth and twentieth cen¬ 
turies, 562-564, 662, 663, 665, 696, 
697, 702, 720, 733, 742, 743, 744 
Japanese, the, 20, 24, 561 
Java, 322 
Jehovah, 49, 51, 52 
Jena, battle of, 397, 398 
Jenghiz, Khan, 189, 190 
Jerusalem, 34, 36, 147, 185, 697 
Jesuits. See Society of Jesus 
Jesus, 52, 146, 180 
Jews, the, 22, 49, 147, 200, 293, 315, 
354, 444, 528, 646, 722 
Joffre, General, 686, 711 
John, King of England, 198 
John VI, King of Portugal, 425 
Joliet, 330 

Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor, 
366 

Joseph Bonaparte, 399, 402, 508, 572 
Josephine, Empress, 403 
Judah, Hebrew tribe, 34 
Judea, kingdom of, 34, 35, 36 
Jugoslavia, 721, 724 
Jugoslavs, the, 176, 530, 724 


“July Revolution,” the, in France, 
427, 428, 474 

Junkers, the, 310, 464, 517, 676 
Justinian, 143 
“Just price,” the, 225 
Jutland, battle of, 698 

Kaaba, the, 178, 179 
Kant. Immanuel, 652, 736 
Kerensky, Alexander, 708, 709 
Kiaochow, 697, 720 
Kiel Canal, the, 672, 677 
Kiev, 522 

Kitchener, General, 549 
Knighthood, 172 
Koch, Robert, 651 
Koniggratz. See Sadowa 
Koran, the, 179, 180, 181, 723 
Korea, 557, 559, 562, 564 
Kosciuszko, 317 
Kossovo, battle of, 532 
Kossuth, 439, 519 
Kruger, Paul, 548 
Kublai Khan, 245 
Kultur, German, 674, 675 

Labor legislation, 616-619 
Labor movement, the, 613-615 
Ladrone Islands. See Marianas Is¬ 
lands 

Lafayette, Marquis de, 368, 374, 
375, 376, 428 

Laissez-faire, doctrine of, 356, 616, 
621 

Land Purchase Acts, Irish, 490 
Land tenure. See Agriculture 
Langley, S. P., 599 
Languages, classification of, 20-22; 

European, 63 
Laos, 553 
Laplace, 357 
Lapps, the, 18 

La Salle, Robert de, 330, 575 
Latin America, 571-575 
Latin colonies, the, 119, 120, 124 
132 

•Latin language, the, 143, 144, 201, 
232, 233, 238, 241, 242, 631 
Latins, the, 111, 118 
Latium, 111, 118 
Latvia, 726, 727, 741 
Latvis. See Letts 


I 






Index 


765 


Laud, Archbishop, 284 
Lavoisier, 358 

Law, Oriental, 46-49; Roman, 116, 
142, 143; the Common, 143, 198, 
291, 482 

League of Nations, the, 609, 619, 
718, 719, 720, 726, 732, 739-741 
Learned societies, founding of, 358 
Lebanon Mountains, the, 33, 34 
Legates, papal, 209, 210 
Legion of Honor, the, 395 
Leibniz, 357 
Leipzig, battle of, 405 
Lenin, Nicholas, 709, 733 
Leo XIII, pope, 507 
Leon, 196 

Leon, Ponce de, 251 
Leonidas, 85 

Leopold II, King of Belgium, 510 
Lepanto, naval battle of, 307 
Lesseps, Ferdinand de, 550, 579 
Lettres de cachet, 369, 375 
Letts, the, 727 

Lewis and Clark, explorations of, 
580 

Lhasa, 553 

Liberal Party, British, 476, 479, 480, 
487, 683 

Liberia, 546, 704 

“Liberty, Equality, Fraternity,” 363, 
398, 408-410 

Libya, Italian colony, 507, 547 

Licinius, 148 

Lignv, battle of, 407 

Ligurian Republic, the, 390, 398 

Limburg, 431 

Linnaeus, 358 

Liquor traffic, the, abolition of, 636 
Lisbon, 247, 251, 322, 402 
Literature, Oriental, 53, 54; Greek, 
71, 72, 92; Renaissance, 237, 238, 
241, 242; modern, 653, 654 
Lithuania, 278, 315, 696, 710, 727, 
741 

Lithuanians, the, 310, 314 
Livingstone, David, 546 
Livonia, 710, 727 
Locke, John, 359, 360, 361, 368 
Lombards, the, 157, 158, 159 
Lombardy, 419, 420, 455, 456 
Long Parliament, the, 284, 285 
Lords, House of, 281, 473, 475, 476, 
483-485 


Lorraine, 275, 296, 298, 351, 369, 
408, 470, 471, 514, 517, 658, 660, 
676, 684, 718, 719. See also 

Alsace 

Louis XIV, King of France, 295- 
301, 325, 330, 331, 332, 347, 349, 
351, 361, 396, 405, 547, 683, 684; 
XV, 317, 331, 349, 351, 368, 369, 
370; XVI, 370, 371, 373, 374, 375, 
377, 378, 380, 381, 383, 384, 385; 
XVIII, 406, 416, 423, 427 
Louis Bonaparte, 446 
Louis Napoleon. See Napoleon III 
Louis Philippe, King of France, 
427, 429, 433, 435, 436, 540 
Louisiana, 330, 334, 575, 576, 580 
Loyola, Ignatius, 264, 265 
Lublin, Union of, 315 
Lucca, 278, 420 
Ludendorff, General, 711 
Lusitania, the, 701 
Luther, Martin, 256-258, 280 
Lutheranism, 258, 262, 263, 268, 274, 
275, 315, 353, 513, 642 
Luxemburg, 431, 461, 682, 684, 696 
Lydia, 36, 38, 43, 59, 81 
Lyell, Sir Charles, 648 

Macedonia, conquered by Persia, 
82, 83; under Philip II, 94-98; 
under Alexander the Great, 98; 
Hellenistic kingdom of, 102; an¬ 
nexed by Rome, 125, 126; as a 
Turkish province, 536, 538; liber¬ 
ated from Turkish sway, 538, 670 
MacMahon, Marshal, 469, 501 
Madagascar, 504, 540, 547, 548 
Madeira Islands, the, 509 
Madras, 325 

Magellan, 249, 250, 343, 565 
Magenta, battle of, 456 
Magna Carta, 198, 283, 289, 290, 
292 

Magna Graecia, 80, 118 
Magyars, the, 18, 63, 188, 189, 190, 
519, 520, 530, 721 
Malacca, 250, 322 
Malay Archipelago, the, 250, 322 
Malay States, Federated, 553 
Malays, the, 18, 21 
Malta, 418, 494 
Manchu dynasty, the, 560 
Manchuria, 557, 559, 564 







766 


Index 


Manor, the medieval, 211-215 
Manufacturing, inventions in, 587- 
591 

Marathon, battle of, 84 
Marconi, Guglielmo, 602 
Mardonius, 83, 86 
Marduk, 53 

Marengo, battle of, 392 
Marianas Islands, the, 250 
Maria Louisa, 403 
Maria Theresa, 309, 312, 313, 317 
318, 371 

Marie Antoinette, 371, 381, 383, 387 
Marius, 133, 134 
Markets, medieval, 225 
Marlborough, Duke of, 299 
Marne River, the, battle of, 686, 711 
Marquette, 330 
Mars, Roman deity, 114 
Marseilles, 81 
Martyrs, Christian, 148 
Marx, Karl, 624, 625, 730 
Mary (wife of William III), 292 
Mary Tudor, 260 
Maryland, 254, 328 
Masaryk, T. G., 725 
Massachusetts, 328, 337 
Mathematics, 55, 105, 356, 357 
Mauritius, 494 

Maxmilian, Emperor of Mexico 
521, 571 

Mazurian Lakes, the, battle of, 690 
Mazzini, 440, 452, 453, 506 
Mecca, 178, 179, 180, 667, 697, 723 
Medes, the, 22, 36, 51 
Medicine and surgery, 56, 57, 105 
183, 651 

Medina, 179, 667, 697, 723 
Mediterranean basin, the, 64-67 
Mediterranean racial tvpe, the 62 
63, 67, 110 
Memphis, 31, 100 
Menes, 31 

Mercantilists, the, 319, 320, 355 
Mesopotamia, 666, 697, 713 , 723 
Messiah, the, 147 
Messina, 81 

Metals, the, discovery and use of 
15-17, 30, 67, 69 
Methodists, the, 353, 646 
Metternich, Prince, 415, 420 421 
422, 424, 425, 426, 432, 434, 438* 
442, 526, 527, 533, 577, 737 


Metternichismus, 422, 425, 434 
Mexico, 251, 252, 253, 572, 574, 575, 
577, 702, 741 
Michelangelo, 240 
Middle Ages, the, 154, 155, 234, 235 
“Middle Europe,” 668 
Milan, 278, 300 

Milan, Edict of, 148; Decree, 400 
401 

Militarism, modern, 670-674 
Miltiades, 84 
Minorca, 300, 340 
Mir, the Russian, 612 
Mirabeau, Count, 372, 374, 377, 378, 
381, 382 

Missions and missionaries, Chris¬ 
tian, 265, 546, 646, 647 
Mississippi River, the, 330, 332, 333 
340 

Mithra, 146 

Modena, 278, 420, 433, 439, 457 
Mogul Empire, the, 324, 325 
Mohammed, prophet, 178, 179, 180 
Mohammed II, sultan, 190 
Mohammedanism. See Islam 
Moldavia, 535 

Moltke, Iielmuth von, 463, 465, 467 
Moluccas. See Spice Islands 
Monarchy, Oriental, 39, 40; Greek, 
77, 78; Roman, 136, 137, 151 * 
feudal, 166, 167, 197; modern 
European, 198, 279, 280, 347, 413, 
414 

Monasticism, 206, 207 

Money, 42, 43, 114, 253, 605, 606 
Mongolia, 557 

Mongoloid Race. See Yellow Race 
Mongols, the, 63, 189, 301, 302, 314 
Monotheism, ancient Oriental, 51 , 
52; Arabian, 178, 179, 180 
Monroe Doctrine, the, 426, 577, 665 
Montcalm, Marquis de, 332 
Montenegro, 278, 307, 532, 536, 538 
669, 692, 693, 696, 716, 724 
Montesquieu, 361, 362, 364, 368 
Montgolfier Brothers, the, 357 , 358 
Montreal, 330, 331, 333 
Moors, the, 196, 197 
Morality, Oriental, 46-49 
Moravia, 725 

Morocco, 504, 548, 665, 666 
Morse, F. B., 601 
Mosaic code, the, 48, 49 


i 





Index 


767 


Moscow, 404, 522 
Moses, 49, 180 
Mozambique, 547 
Muscovy, 522 
Museum, Alexandrian, 105 
Music, Renaissance, 241; modern, 
654, 655 

Mycale, battle of, 86 
Mycenae, 67, 71 

Nansen, Fridtjof, 581 
Nantes, Edict of, 273, 354, 642 
Naples, city, 80 
Naples, kingdom, 399 
Napoleon I, Bonaparte, 388-410, 
445, 446, 451, 460, 461, 569, 572, 
575, 576, 633, 683, 684; II, 446; 
III, 437, 440, 446-449, 455, 456, 
457, 458, 459, 467, 468, 469, 471, 
500, 521, 534, 577 
Naseby, battle of, 286 
Nassau, duchy, 468 
Natal, 548, 549 

National Assembly, French, 374, 
375, 376-379, 613 

National Convention, the, 384-388, 
394 

Nationalism, modern, 443-446 
Nationalists, Irish, 487, 491 
Naucratis, 81 

Navarino, naval battle of, 533 
Navarre, 196 

Navigation Acts, the, 335, 608 
Neanderthal man, 7, 8 
Nearchus, 101 

Near East, the, geography of, 27- 
30; peoples of, 30-38 ; civiliza¬ 
tion of, in antiquity, 39-59 
Nebuchadnezzar, 36, 39 
Nebular hypothesis, the, 357 
Negative Confession, Egyptian, 47 
Negroes, African, 2, 17, 18, 20, 21 
Negroid Race. See Black Race 
Nelson, Lord, 390, 397 
Neolithic Age, the, 12-15 
Netherlands, Spanish, 268-270, 277, 
297, 300; Austrian, 385, 389, 418. 
See also Belgium, Holland 
Neuilly, Treaty of, 721, 722 
New Caledonia, 504, 505 
New England, 328, 329 
Newfoundland, 332, 333, 569, 571 
New Guinea, 566 


New Hampshire, 328 
New Jersey, 329 
New Mexico, 251 

“New Model,” Cromwell’s, 286, 287 

New Netherland, 323, 327 

New Orleans, 331 

Newspapers, 602, 603 

New Testament, the, 147, 241 

Newton, Sir Isaac, 357 

New York, 329 

New Zealand, 344, 568, 720 
Nicaea, Council of, 148 
Nice, 389, 417, 453, 457 
Nicene Creed, the, 148 
Nicholas, Grand Duke, 690 
Nicholas I, Tsar of Russia, 431, 432, 
439, 526, 527, 533; II, 528, 672, 
725 

Nigeria, 496 
Niger River, the, 544 
Nihilists, Russian, 527, 528 
Nile River, the, 29, 30, 545 
Nineveh, 35, 36, 44, 53, 100 
Nobility, Oriental, 40; feudal, 168- 
170; modern European, 348-350, 
484 

Nonconformists, the, 290, 293, 354, 
472 

Normandy, 165, 172 
Normans, the, 165, 166, 167 
North, Lord, 472 

North German Confederation, the, 
468, 471 

Northmen, the, inroads of, 164; set¬ 
tlements of, 164-166, 195 
North Pole, the, discovery of, 581 
North Sea barrage, the, 703, 704 
Norway, 164, 258, 278, 400, 419, 
513 

Novara, battle of, 440 
Nova Scotia, 332, 569, 570 
Novgorod, 302 

Obregon, Alvaro, 575 
Oceania, opening-up and partition 
of, 565-568 

O’Connell, Daniel, 491 

Octavian, 136. See also Augustus 

Odysseus, 71 

Odyssey, the, 71, 72, 75 

Old Regime, the, 346-366 

Old Testament, the, 53, 54, 105 

Olympian games, the, 74, 75, 148 




Index 



Olympus, Mount, 72 
“Open-field” system, the, 212, 213, 
610 

Oracles, Greek, 73, 75 
Orange dynasty, the, 419, 512 
Orange Free State, the, 548, 549 
Orders in Council, the, 401, 569 
Orlando, Vittorio, 717 
Orleans, 196 
Ormuz, 250 

Orthodox (Russian) Church, the, 
306, 315, 364, 524, 527, 528, 645,’ 
727 

Ostrogoths, the, 157, 158, 159 
Othman, 190 

Otto I, the Great, 163, 189, 399 
Ottoman Empire, the, founded, 190, 
191; extent of, in 1648, 278; be¬ 
tween 1648 and 1815, 305, 306- 
308; between 1815 and 1914, 419, 
423, 424, 426, 526, 531-539, 666, 
667 ; government of, 530, 531, 
537; in the World War, 692, 693, 
694, 697, 702, 713; after the 
World War, 722, 723 
Ottoman Turks, the, 18, 63, 190 
191, 530, 531 

Owen, Robert, 622, 623, 625 

Paganism, decline of, 145, 146; pro¬ 
hibition of, 148 

Painting, Oriental, 55; Ren aissance, I 
240, 242; modern, 656 
Paleolithic Age, the, 8-12 
Pale, the, in Ireland, 487 
Palestine, 31, 33, 134, 697, 722 
Palestrina, 241 
Panama, 579, 704 
Panama Canal, the, 494, 579 
Pan-American Union, the, 579 
Pan-Germanism, 674-677 
Pan-Hellenism, 533, 534 
Papacy. See Roman Church 
Papal Guarantees, Law of, 507 
Papal States. See States of the 
Church 

Paper, 25, 238 

Paris, 196, 233, 374, 375, 382, 394, 
469 

Paris, Peace of (1763), 313, 327, 
333, 369; (1783), 340, 575; 

(1856), 449, 455, 534, 535, 737; 
(1898), 509 


Park, Mungo, 544 

Parliament, British, during the 
Middle Ages, 198; under the 
Tudors and the Stuarts, 281-293 ; 
reform of, during the nineteenth 
century, 473-482, 484 
Parma, 278, 420, 433, 439, 457 
Parnell, C. S., 491 
Parsees, the, 51 
Parthenon, the, 91 
Parthians, the, 137, 150 
Pasteur, Louis, 651 
Paul III, pope, 264, 265 
Peace movement, the, 672, 673, 736 
737, 738, 739, 740, 741 
Peary, R. E., 581 

Peasants, Oriental, 41; Athenian, 
89, 90; Roman, 114, 128, 129, 
141; medieval, 211-218; modern^ 
351, 352, 489, 490, 611, 612 
Peel, Sir Robert, 607 
Peking, 245, 560 
Peloponnesian War, the, 94 
Penal code, the, reform of, 634, 635 
Penn, William, 644, 645, 736 
Pennsylvania, 254, 328, 329, 644 
Pensions, old-age, 618 
Pericles, 93 
Perry, M. C., 562 
Persepolis, 100 
Pershing, General, 711, 712 
Persia, empire of, 36-38 ; wars of, 
vwth the Greeks, 81-88 ; conquered 
by Alexander the Great, 99-101 • 
modern, 552, 553, 554, 662 
Persians, the, 22, 51 
Peru, 251, 252, 253, 572 
Peter I, King of Serbia, 668 
Peter the Great, 303-305, 345 347 
524 

“Peter's pence,” 210, 211 

Petition of Right, the, 283, 289 292 
472 

Petrarch, 237, 238 

Petrine supremacy, the, doctrine of 
208, 209 

Petrograd, 305, 552 
Petroleum, 591 
Phidias, 91 

IT dip II, King of Macedonia, 95- 


270, 271, 272, 273, 322, 396, 683 


I 










Index 


769 


Philippi, 96 

Philippines, the, 250, 509, 541, 565, 
566, 576, 743 
Philistines, the, 34 
Philosophy, Greek, 92, 93 ; modern, 
652 

Phoenicia, alphabet of, 25; com¬ 
merce and colonies of, 33, 44-46, 
58, 69, 71 

Phoenicians, the, 22 
Physiocrats, the, 355, 356, 370 
Piave River, the, battles of, 696, 713, 
714 

Piedmont, 398, 417, 425, 453 
Piltdown man, 7 

Pitt, William (Earl of Chatham), 
337 

Pitt, William (the Younger), 397, 
399, 472, 607 

Pius IX, pope, 439, 440, 453, 507; 

X, 507 
Pizarro, 251 

Plants, domestication of, 14, 41 
Plassey, battle of, 327 
Platoea, battle of, 86 
Plato, 92, 248 
Plevna, 535, 536 
Plymouth, 328 

Poland, union of, with Lithuania, 
278, 314, 315; condition of, in the 
eighteenth century, 315, 316; par¬ 
titioned, 317, 318; the Grand 

Duchy of Warsaw, 399; after the 
Vienna settlement, 419; revolts 
in, 431-433; in the World War, 
690, 696; republic of, 719, 721, 
725, 726 

Poles, the, 314, 315, 725 
Political parties, contemporary, 487, 
503, 506 

Polo, Marco, 245, 249, 343 
Polynesians, the, 2, 17, 18 
Pomerania, 275, 419, 460 
Pompey, 134, 135 
Pondicherry, 325 

Popular sovereignty, doctrine of, 
280, 289, 360, 363, 408, 409 
Population, statistics of, 626 
Port Arthur, 552, 559, 697 
Porto Rico, 509, 575 
Portsmouth, Treaty of, 564 
Portugal, 250, 251, 277, 402, 403, 
425, 509, 547, 566, 573, 704 


Poseidon, 72 

Posen, 419, 431, 517, 719, 725 
Postal service, the, 602 
Potato Famine, the, 490 
Potosi, silver mines of, 253 
Poverty, modern, 628, 629 
Pragmatic Sanction, the, 309 
Prague, Treaty of, 467, 468 
Prehistoric times, 1-26 
Presbyterianism, 286, 287, 290, 353 
“Pride’s Purge,” 287 
Priesthoods, Oriental, 40 
Printing, invention of, 238, 239 
Prison reform, 635 
Privileged classes, the, in eighteenth- 
century Europe, 347-350 
Prohibition movement, the, 636 
Protective system, the, 608, 609 
Protectorate, the, in England, 288, 
289 

Protestantism, character of, 261, 
262; sects of, 262, 263 
Provencal, 233 
Provence, Count of, 380, 406 
Provincial system, Roman, 126-128, 
138, 150, 151 

Prussia, rise of, 300, 309-311; un¬ 
der Frederick the Great, 311-314, 
365 ; during the revolutionary 
and Napoleonic era, 385, 386, 397, 
399, 400, 401, 405, 406; territo¬ 
rial acquisitions of, by the Vienna 
settlement, 419; revolutionary 
movement of 1848, in, 440-442 ; as 
the unifier of Germany, 462, 463 ; 
under William I, 463-465; wars 
of, with Denmark and Austria, 
465-467; forms North German 
Confederation, 468; at war with 
France, 469-470; heads new Ger¬ 
man Empire, 471 ; position of, in 
the German Empire, 514, 515, 
516; government of, 516, 517 
Prussia, East, 278, 310, 313, 315, 
517, 690; West, 310, 317, 517, 
719, 725 

Ptolemies, the, dynasty of, 136 
Ptolemy, Greek scientist, 104, 243, 
248, 343 

Public ownership, 619-621, 622 





770 


Index 


Public school system, the, 354, 640- 
642 

Punic Wars, the, 121-125 
Puritan Revolution, the, 285-289 
367, 408 

Puritans, the, 282, 284, 286, 287 
Pygmies, the, 543 
Pym, John, 284, 285 

Quakers, the, 254, 290, 353, 646 
Quebec, city, 329, 330, 331, 332 

Races of man, the, 17-20 

Racial types, European, 62, 63, 67 
69 

Radium, 650 
Railroads, 598, 620 
Raleigh, Sir Walter, 272, 328 
Rameses II, 31, 39 

Reform Acts, the, 475, 476, 480, 484 
Reformation, Protestant, 254-263 ; 

Catholic Counter, 264-267 
Reggio, 81 

Reichstag, the, 515, 516, 731 
Reign of Terror, the, 387, 388 
“Reinsurance Compact,” the, 659 
Religion, Palaeolithic, 12; Oriental, 
49-52; Greek, 72-74; Roman, 113 
114; in India, China and 
Japan, 555, 558, 562; statistics of 
world religions, 646. See also 
Christianity, Islam 
Renaissance, the, 236-244 
Representative system, absence of, 
in classical antiquity, 89, 127; 
development of, 412, 413 
Revival of learning, the, 236-239 
241 

Rhinelands, the, 715, 720 
Rhode Island, 328, 341, 644 
Rhodes, 103, 186, 722 
Rhodes, Cecil, 496, 548, 549 
Rhodesia, 549, 550 
Richelieu, Cardinal, 274 
Roads, Persian, 37, 38; Roman, 
596* modern European, 

Robespierre, 382, 385, 386, 387 
Rollo, 165 
Romagna, 457 

Romance languages, the, 143 144 
232, 233 

Roman Church, the, characteristics 


of, 200, 201; doctrines and wor¬ 
ship of, 201, 202; jurisdiction of, 
202, 203; social and economic 
aspects of, 203, 204; the clergy, 
205-208; the medieval Papacy, 
208-211; the Reformation and 
Counter Reformation, 254-267; 
during the eighteenth century, 
352, 353, 354; in France, during 
the revolutionary and Napoleonic 
era, 377, 380, 393; loss of tem¬ 
poral power by, 506; disestab¬ 
lishment of, in Europe, 645 
Romanesque architecture, 228, 229 
Romanov dynasty, the, 303, 525, 708 
Romanov, Michael, 303 
Roman Republic, Mazzini’s, 440 
453, 458 


Romans, the, 112-115 
Rome, founding of, 111, 112; early 
history of, 112; as a city-state, 
115-117; expansion of, over 
Italy, 118-120; becomes supreme 
in the Mediterranean, 120-126; 
provincial system of, under the 
republic, 126-128; effects of for¬ 
eign conquests on, 128-130; de¬ 
cline and fall of the republican 
system, 130-136; the Early Em¬ 
pire, 136-141; world rule of, 142- 
145, converted to Christianity, 
145-150; the Later Empire, 150- 
153; as the capital of the Papacy, 
211; becomes the Italian capital’ 

Romulus, 112 

Romulus Augustulus, 152, 153 161 
173 ’ ’ 

Rontgen, W. K., 650 
Roon, Albrecht von, 463, 465, 467 
Roosevelt, Theodore, 564, 665 
“Roundheads,” the, 285, 291 
Rousseau, 362, 363, 368, 378, 382 
389, 624 


Rumania, 138, 535, 536, 538, 659 
692, 693, 694, 696, 721 
Rumanians, the, 176, 530 
Rumelia, Eastern, 536, 537 
Ruric, 165, 302 

Russia, the Northmen in, 165- the 
Mongols in, 189 , 301, 302; under 
reter the Great, 303-305; under 







Index 


771 


Catherine the Great, 306-308, 
364; during the revolutionary 
and Napoleonic era, 390, 391, 397, 
398, 401, 403-405, 406; territo¬ 
rial acquisitions of, by the Vienna 
settlement, 419; between 1815 and 
1914, 423, 424, 426, 430, 431-433, 
439, 449, 455, 467, 524-529, 534, 
535, 536, 659, 660, 662, 663, 668, 
669; expansion of, in Asia, 551, 
552, 553, 554, 559, 564; in the 
World War, 679, 680, 681, 690, 
692; the Russian Revolutoin, 707- 
710, 732, 733 

Russians, the, 176, 301, 302, 522-524 
Russo-Japanese War, the, 564 
Russo-Turkish War, the, 535, 536 

Saar Basin, the, 719 

Sabbath, Hebrew, 49 

Sacraments, the, 201, 262, 263, 363 

Sadowa, battle of, 467 

St. Benedict, 206 

St. Brandan, island of, 248 

St. Dominic, 207 

St. Francis, 207 

St.-Germain, Treaty of, 721, 732 
St. Helena, island, 407, 494 
St. Lawrence River, the, 330, 331, 
332 

St. Paul, 146, 147 
St. Peter, 208 

St. Petersburg. See Petrograd 
Sakhalin, 564 

Salamis, naval battle of, 86 

Salisbury, Lord, 661 

Salonika, 694 

Salvation Army, the, 637 

Samaria, 34 

Samnites, the, 111, 118 

Samoa, 567, 576, 720 

Samson, 34 

Samuel, 34 

San Marino, 219 

Sanskrit language, the, 22 

San Stefano, Treaty of, 536 

Santo Domingo, 575, 716 

Sarajevo, 678 

Saratoga, 338 

Sardinia, island, 45, 81, 119, 122, 
300 

Sardinia, kingdom, 300, 385, 389, 


417, 420, 439, 440, 453, 454, 455, 
456, 457, 458, 534 
Sardis, 37, 82, 85 
Sargon I, 32 
Saul, Hebrew king, 34 
Saul of Tarsus. See St. Paul 
Savoy, 278, 300, 389, 417, 453, 455, 
457 

Saxony, 313, 399, 419, 420, 433, 441, 
467 

Schleswig, 466, 468, 517, 719. See 
also Holstein 

Science, Oriental, 55-57 ; Hellenis¬ 
tic, 105; Arabian, 182, 183 ; 

Renaissance, 242-244; modern, 
356-358, 647-652 
Scipio, Publius, 124 
Scotland, 193, 194, 277, 281, 284 
Scott, R. F., 581 
Scott, Sir Walter, 653 
Scribes, Oriental, 57 
Sculpture, Oriental, 54, 55; Renais¬ 
sance, 240, 242; modern, 655 
Scutari, 669 
Scythians, the, 82 

Sea-power, British, 272, 493, 494, 
671, 672, 742 
Secret societies, 646 
Sects, Protestant, 262, 263, 353, 646 
Sedan, battle of, 469, 500 
Seleucia, 103 

Seljuk Turks, the, 183, 184 
Semitic languages and peoples, 21, 
22, 32, 33, 35, 543 
Senate, Roman, 117, 132 
Sennacherib, 36, 39, 43 
Separatists. See Independents 
Sepoy Mutiny, the, 554 
“Sepoys,” the, 325 
Serbia, 532, 536, 538, 668, 669, 677, 
678, 679, 680, 684, 692, 693, 696, 
724 

Serfdom, medieval, 204, 215-218; 
survival of, in the eighteenth 
century, 351; abolition of, in the 
nineteenth century, 376, 405, 

527, 612; Japanese, 562, 563 
Serica, 27 
Sevastopol, 534 

“Seven Weeks’ War.” See Austro- 
Prussian War 

Seven Years’ War, the, 313, 314, 




772 


Index 


327, 332, 336, 338, 365, 369, 540, 
575, 586 

Sevres, Treaty of, 722 
Seychelles, 494 
Shackleton, Sir Ernest, 581 
Shaftesbury, Earl of, 616 
Shakespeare, 242 
Shantung, 720, 743 
Sheol, 52, 73 
Shinar, 28, 32, 54 
“Ship-money,” 283, 284 
Siam, 245, 553, 554, 704 
Siberia, 526, 541, 551, 552, 725, 732 
Sicily, colonized by the Greeks, 81; 
the Carthaginians in, 81, 119, 
121; annexed by Rome, 122, 125; 
the Normans in, 166; acquired 
by Savoy, 300 
Sidon, 33 
Sierra Leone, 496 
Si eyes, the Abbe, 372, 373, 391 
Silesia, Prussian, 312, 313; Aus¬ 
trian, 725 

Sinai, peninsula of, 16, 34 
Singapore, 494 

Sinn Fein Party, the, 487, 492 
Slavery, Oriental, 41; Greek, 90; 
Roman, 140, 141, 142, 143, 144 ’ 
145; medieval, 204, 215; aboli¬ 
tion of, during the nineteenth 
century, 633, 634 
Slave trade, the, 633 
Slavic peoples. See Jugoslavs, Poles, 
Russians 
Slovakia, 725 

Smith, Adam, 356, 584, 607, 621 
624 

Smyrna, 722 
Sobieski, John, 307 
Social betterment, 633-637 

Social Democratic Partv, the 625 
626 ' 

Socialism, 621-626, 729, 730 
Society of Jesus, the, 264, 265 
Sociology, 652, 653 
Socrates, 92 
Solferino, battle of, 456 
Solomon, 34, 36, 39, 45 
Somaliland, French, 504 548* 

Italian, 507, 547 

Somme River, the, battle of, 687 
689, 693 


Sophia, Electress of Hanover, 293 
294 

South African War, the, 499, 548 

662 

South Pole, the, discovery of, 581 

583 

South Slavs. See Jugoslavs 
Soviets, Russian, 708, 709 
Spain, Phoenicians and Carthagin¬ 
ians in, 45, 81, 123; annexed by 
Rome, 124, 125; unification of, 
during the Middle Ages, 196, 
197; forms a colonial empire,’ 
251, 252; under Charles V and 
Philip II, 267, 268; during the 
seventeenth and eighteenth cen¬ 
turies, 277, 297, 298,299, 300,312, 
338, 340 ; during the revolution¬ 
ary and Napoleonic era, 385, 386, 
400, 402, 403; the Bourbon res¬ 
toration in, 416, 417, 425, 426, 
508; government of, 508; colonies 
of, 508, 509, 571-573 
Spanish-American War, the 508 
509, 5.76 

Spanish Succession, the, War of 
299, 300, 324 

Sparta, 75, 78, 79, 81, 84, 85, 86, 

_ 94, 97, 106 
Speculation, 604 
Speke, J. H., 545 
Spencer, Herbert, 652 
Spice Islands, the, 249, 250, 322 
Spinning, improvements in 587 
588, 589 


Stanley, H. M.\ 546 
States of the Church, the, 210, 278 
399 417, 420, 433, 450, 459, 506 
Meamboat, the, 597, 598 
Steam engine, the, 590 
Stein, Baron vom, 405, 415, 420, 461 
Stephenson, George, 598 
Straits Settlements, 496 
Stuart dynasty, the, 281, 282, 284 
, 289, 290, 292, 293, 294 ’ 

Submarine boat, the, 600 
Suez Canal, the, 550, 551, 667, 730 

Suffrage, woman, 411, 481, 638, 639 
Sulla, 133, 134 


Sumatra, 322 
Sumerians, the, 32 
Supreme Council, the, 716, 


717, 735 








Index 


773 


Susa, 37, 100 

Sweden, 164, 165, 258, 274, 275, 
278, 297, 305, 306, 397, 398, 419, 
513, 524 

Switzerland, 258, 259, 275, 277, 279, 
399, 420, 510-512, 737 
Svagrius, 158 
Syllabaries, 24, 68 
Syracuse, 81, 94 

Syria, 31, 32, 33, 102, 126, 134, 390, 
713, 722 

Talleyrand, 415 
Tannenberg, battle of, 690 
Taranto, 80 
Tarrsus, 146 
Tasman, Abel, 344 
Tasmania, 344, 568 
Tatars, the, 63, 189, 302, 524 
Telegraph, the, 600, 601 
Telephone, the, 601 
Templars, the, 185 
Temples, Greek, 91 
Temporal power of the Papacy, the, 
210, 450, 506, 507 
Ten Commandments, the, 47, 49 
Ten-Hour Act, the, 617 
‘Tennis Court Oath,” the, 373, 378 
Tertiary epoch, the, 4, 5 
Teutonic Knights, the, 310, 314 
Teutonic languages, the, 233, 234 
Teutonic peoples. See Germans, 
Northmen 
Texas, 576 

Theaters, Greek, 91, 92 
Thebes, in Egypt, 31 
Thebes, in Greece, 75, 77, 93, 95, 
97, 98, 99 

Themistocles, 85, 86 
Thermopylas, battle of, 85 
Thiers, Adolphe, 436, 500, 501 
Third Estate, the, in eighteenth- 
century Franpe, 349-352 
Third Section, Russian, 526, 528 
Thirteen Colonies, the, settlement of, 
328, 329; revolt of, 334-341 
Thirty Years’ War, the, 274, 275, 
460 

Thrace, 82, 83, 90, 96, 98, 721, 722 
Tibet, 245, 553, 554, 557, 662 
Tibetans, the, 21 
Tigris River, the, 28 
Tilsit, Peace of, 397, 398, 401, 402 


Timbuktu, 544 
Timor, 566 
Tirvns, 67 
Togo, 547, 696, 720 
Toleration, religious, 148, 263, 273, 
290, 293, 354, 360, 362, 365, 512, 
642, 644 

Toleration Act, the, 293, 644 
Tonkin, 553 
“Tories,” the, 338, 569 
Tory Party, the, 291, 472, 473, 474, 
475, 476 

Toulon, 385, 389 
Tours, battle of, 181, 184 
Townshend Acts, the, 336 
Trade Union Act, the, 614 
Trade unions, British, 613, 614; 
Continental, 614 

Trafalgar, naval battle of, 397, 400 
Trajan, 138 

Transportation, improvements in, 
596-600 

Trans-Siberian Railway, the, 552, 
660 

Transvaal, the, 548, 549 
Transylvania, 693, 721 
Trent, Council of, 265, 266, 267 
Trentino, the, 459, 695, 721 
Tribunate, the, 116, 131, 132 
Trieste, 459, 695, 714 
Triple Alliance, the, 659, 660, 670 
Triple Entente, the, 662, 684 
Troppau, Protocol of, 424, 526 
Trotsky, Leon, 709, 733 
Troy, 67, 71, 99 
“Truce of God,” the, 203 
Tudor dynasty, the, 280, 281, 284 
Tunis, 504, 505, 547, 659 
Turgot, 370, 371, 376 
Turkestan, 101, 552, 557 
Turkey. See Ottoman Empire 
Turko-Italian War, the, 507, 547, 
722 

Turks. See Ottoman Turks, Seljuk 
Turks 

Tuscany, 109, 278, 420, 439, 457 
Twelve Tables, the, 116, 142 
Two Sicilies, the, kingdom of, 166, 
172, 278, 417, 420, 439, 440, 458 
Tyrannies, Greek, 78 
Tyre, 33, 46, 99, 100 
Tze-hsi, empress-dowager of China, 

560 




774 


Index 


U-boat warfare, German, 699, 701, 
702, 703, 70+ 

Ukraine, the, 302, 710, 727, 728 
Ulm, 397, 398 
Ulster, 489, 492 
Umbrians, the, 111 
Union of South Africa, the, 549 
696, 720 

Unitarians, the, 293, 353 , 35 + 

United Kingdom. See England, Ire¬ 
land, Wales 

United Netherlands. See Holland 
United States, the, formation of, 
341-343 ; territorial expansion of, 
509, 514, 541, 566, 575, 576; in 
the World War, 700-707, 712, 
713; after the World War, 717 
t 718, 741, 742, 743 
Universities, medieval, 230-232 
Uruguay, 573 
L trecht, L nion of, 270, 414; Peace 
of, 300, 301, 332, 418, 716 

Valmv, battle of, 385 
Vandals, the, 157, 158 
Varennes, 381 
Vassalage, 168-170 
Vendee, La, 385 
Venetia, 390, 397, 399, 420, 455 
456, 459, 467, 468 
Venezuela, 572, 573, 665, 738 
Venice, 278, 279 
Venizelos, Eleutherios, 534 , 692, 694 
Verdun, Treaty of, 162; siege of 
687, 693 

Versailles, 295, 296, 371, 373 , 471 
502, 716, 717 

Versailles, Treaty of (1783), 340; 
Treaties of (1919), 717, 718, 719^ 
720, 721 

Victor Emmanuel II, King of Italy, 
440, 453, 454, 456, 458, 459, 506; 
HI, 506, 534 

Victoria, Queen, 483, 498. 518, 545 
554, 661 

Vienna, 307, 308 

Vienna, Congress of, 414, 415 , 41 6 
418, 420, 421, 429, 431, 445, 461.’ 
510, 657, 716 
Vikings. See Northmen 
Villafranca, armistice of, 456 
Virginia, 328 

Virgin Islands, the, 514, 575 , 576 


Visigoths, the, 157, 158, 159, 188, 
196 

Vladivostok, 552 
Volta, 357 

Voltaire, 362, 364, 365, 370 
Vries, Hugo de, 6+9 


Wagner, Richard, 655 
Wagram, battle of, 403 
Wales, 193 
Wallachia, 535 
Walloons, the, 429, 510 
Warfare, ancient Oriental, 38; 
feudal, 171, 172, 186; attitude of 
the Church toward, 203, 204; 
modern, 671 

War of Liberation, German, 405, 
461, 671 

V arsaw, Grand Duchy of, 399 , 401 
Washington, George, 338, 341 
Waterloo, battle of, 407 

Watt, James, 590 

V ealth, increase and diffusion of 
627, 628 

Weaving, improvements in, 587 
588, 589 

Weihaiwei, 494, 744 
Wellington, Duke of, 403, 407, 415 
474, 475, 478 
Wesley, John, 353 

V est India Company, Dutch, 323 
Westphalia, Peace of, 274, 275, 276, 

296, 418, 420, 450, 716 

Whig Party, the, 291, 472, 474, 475 
476 

White Race, the, 13, 18, 19, 20 , 62, 
67 

Whitney, Eli, 589 
Wilberforce, William, 633, 634 
Wilhelmina, Queen, 512 
Willard, Frances E., 636 
William I, King of Prussia and 
German emperor, '463, 464, 467, 
469, 471, 518, 671, 675; II, 519,’ 
659, 661, 664, 665, 666 , 668 , 669, 
672, 674, 675, 676, 680, 682, 711 
714 

William, Prince of Orange. See 
William III 

William III, King of England, 292, ’ 
293, 298, 299, 331, 488, 489; IV 
475. 




Index 


775 


William the Conqueror, 165, 195 
William the Silent, 270 
Williams, Roger, 644, 645 
Wilson, Woodrow, 682, 700, 701, 
702, 706, 717, 739 
Windsor dynasty, the, 294 
Wireless telegraphy and telephony, 
602 

Wolfe, James, 332 
Woman, condition of, 46, 47, 72, 
112, 113, 173, 637-639 
Women’s Christian Temperance 
Union, 636 

World Court, the, 740, 741 
World War, the, 459, 481, 499, 505, 
524, 529, 534, 566, 599, 600, 606, 
609, 611, 612, 620, 636, 678-715, 
733-736 

Worms, Diet of, 257, 267 
Wright Brothers, the, 599 
Writing, development of, 22-26, 30; 
Cretan, 24, 25, 68, 71 


Wiirtemberg, 420, 468 
Wycliffe, John, 255 

Xerxes I, King of Persia, 84, 85, 86 
X-rays, the, 650 

Yellow Race, the, 18, 19, 20, 21, 187 
Yorktown, 339 
“Young Italy,” 452 
Young Men’s Christian Association, 
the, 637 

Young Turks, the, 537, 668, 723 
Ypres, battles of, 686, 687 

Zama, battle of, 124 
Zambesi River, the, 544, 546 
Zeppelin, Count, 599 
Zeus, 72, 73 

Zollvercin, the, 462, 466 
Zoroaster, 51 
Zoroastrianism, 51, 182 
Zwingli, Huldreich, 258, 259, 263 























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